This initiative aims to improve awareness of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) among high school students from Ranney School (Tinton Falls, NJ) and Monmouth University students, by developing proposals for implementable solutions to the issues addressed by the SDGs. This initiative will be very useful to disseminate awareness of the SDGs in youth and also to bring together higher education faculty and graduate students and high school students to develop suggestions for implementable solutions to the SDGs.

1) Prof. Bonaventura talked to the Ranney students on 19 October 2015, about the Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth mission to foster young people empowerment and leadership to support the United Nations action plan, and, in particular, their involvement in the realization of the SDGs; she explained what the SDGs are and showed the UN video ‘The world we want’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR-YRC5D-QY). Two students, Fabio Tessiore and Brandan Whiteman talked to their peers, encouraging them to take part in this effort to improve their future world. We gave the students a flyer with the list of SDGs, the link to the document that shows the achievements of the Millennium Goals targets so far, and a document that lists the SDG’s and their description. Twenty students signed up for the project.2) Prof. Bonaventura and Mrs. Whiteman met with the participating students on 6 November 2015 and talked more about available resources to develop solutions to the SDGs (Prof. Bonaventura attended a High Level event on “Implementing the post-2015 Agenda” to get input on this from the UN).3) Upon request by the High school Vice Principal, Mr. Adam Materasso, Prof. Bonaventura organized a series of talks to be held at the Ranney School and on Monmouth University campus, by MU faculty, in the next four months, about issues involved in SDG selected by the students and on the best way to address the implementation of each goal (please, see ‘Tentative list of talks’ below).4) Prof. Bonaventura and Mrs. Whitman took Raney students and graduate students to a Youth-led meeting on 2 November 2015 on Climate change initiatives, providing examples of action for SDGs implementation.5) From November to March 2015, the high school students will: * Select an SDG they would like to implement (see ‘Names of high-school students and relative selected goals’ below) * Start developing their proposal for a project to realize a solution to the problems, either in their own community, or in the world at large (the school is multiethnic and many students have relatives in India, China, Japan, Europe, so they might choose to carry out initiatives with communities in need in their countries). Students are encouraged to choose a project with measurable input and outcomes. Faculty and graduate students from Monmouth University will help the Ranney students in the development and implementation of these projects. 6) We expect the results of these projects to be presented at a UNAI meeting in the April/May 2016.

If applicable, this will be arranged through Ranney School and Monmouth University legal procedures.

Prof. Patrizia Bonaventura (Assistant professor at Monmouth University and DPI UN representative) will lead the project, with supervision by Prof. Rekha Datta.Mrs. Renee Whiteman, mother of a student at Ranney School, will participate to the project and collaborate with Prof. Bonaventura in organizing and implementing the activities.Faculty and graduate students from Monmouth University will give a series of talks to the Ranney school high school students, who will develop their projects, suggesting solutions to contribute to the implementation of SDG's, under supervision of the Ranney High School Vice Principal, Mr. Adam Materasso.

* Ranney School * Monmouth University