Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Student Photo Contest 2017 Call for Applications. Deadline: Aug 31. Join now!

The United Nations Information Centre, Tokyo (UNIC Tokyo) and Sophia University are, once again, co-organizing the student photo contest on SDGs with special cooperation from Getty Images Japan. The first photo contest was launched in Japan last year, amassing a total of 624 entries from 47 countries as far and wide as Afghanistan and Brazil. We welcome presently enrolled college and university students, graduate students, and vocational school students to apply.

We ask that you choose one or more of the 17 SDGs that interest you most, and express what it means to you through a photo snapshot. We particularly encourage entries that depict elements of SDGs in your own community. A theme pertaining to the SDGs must also exist within your own country. This year, we will be having the TOGETHER Award and the Concept Award as new additions to the list of awards.

Please visit the contest site at:

https://communityassignments.gettyimages.com/en/community-assignments/sdgs_2017/

Contest Details:

This contest aims to encourage students to “reflect on sustainable development from his or her own perspective, express it through a photo, and share it with others.” We welcome photos that tell a story; they may come in a journalistic form, presenting a clear problem, or may be abstract and creative, representing your ideas and thoughts. What can you do to change the world? How will the SDGs influence the way you think or act? How can you inform your friends, family, and community members of social issues and prompt them to take action? The answers to these questions will become key to achieving the SDGs. We hope you will take advantage of this opportunity and apply.

Last year’s prize winning entries can be viewed at:

https://communityassignments.gettyimages.com/en/community-assignments/sustainabledevelopment/

The award ceremony can be viewed at:

http://blog.unic.or.jp/entry/2016/12/01/101843

"Application Details

❖ Deadline: Submit your photo(s) between Thursday 20 April and Wednesday 30 August 2017. The announcement of the results and the awards ceremony is scheduled to be held in conjunction with United Nations Day, on 24 October.

❖ Qualifications: Applicants must be presently enrolled in university – college and undergraduate students, graduate students, or vocational school students (We welcome entries from applicants of any nationality, including those living abroad)

❖ Awards (subject to change depending on the content and number of applications):　　　　　

・Grand Prize (Foreign Minister’s Award) 1 Prize
・Award of Excellence　                         3 Prize
・Special Award (TOGETHER Award)　    1 Prize
・Special Award (Concept Award)           1 Prize
・Award of Recognition　 

❖ Judges：
Leslie Kee, Photographer
Akira Ono, Photo and Multimedia Editor, The Asahi Shimbun
Yuichi Kimura, Comedian, YOSHIMOTO CREATIVE AGENCY CO., LTD.
Hiroaki Mizushima, Professor, Department of Journalism, Sophia University
Mark Garten, Chief of the UN Photo Unit, Audio-Visual Services Section, United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI)

❖ Judging Panel for the TOGETHER Award:
Representatives from the International Labour Organization (ILO), International Organization for Migration (IOM), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNIC Tokyo, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and United Nations University (UNU)

❖ Judge for the Concept Award:
Getty Images Japan (evaluating based on how well the photograph represents the concepts of the SDGs and evokes certain messages or emotions)

❖ Organisers: UNIC Tokyo, Sophia University

❖ Special Cooperation: Getty Images Japan

❖ Endorsed by: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Global Compact Network Japan (GC-NJ),Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan Civil Society Network on SDGs

❖ Cooperating Partners: Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., Nikon Corporation, SIGMA Corporation

❖ Media Partner: The Asahi Shimbun

❖ Prize Money and Goods: presented by organisers, special cooperating partner, and other cooperating partners (Details will be available on the official contest website)"

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)：The goals that were formally adopted by world leaders at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015. They consist of 17 goals and aim to bring an end to various forms of poverty, fight against inequality, and deal with climate change as each country establishes specific goals and plans for action. However, achieving the SDGs requires not only action at the national level, but also at the individual level. These goals can only be attained when every individual plays his or her part.

TOGETHER campaign: A global campaign that strives to create a society that celebrates the diversity created by embracing refugees and migrants. The campaign aims to communicate the possibilities that arise from accepting refugees and migrants and also encourage people to think about their ability to contribute collectively as a society. Stories of these marginalised individuals will be shared throughout the campaign.

'via Blog this'あなたも応募して 世界につながろう！ 「持続可能な開発目標（SDGs）学生フォトコンテスト2017」 作品募集中！ | 国連広報センター:

PEACE LEADERSHIP on Climate Change: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the l...

"Prize-winning photographs taken by students from around the world – currently exhibited at United Nations Headquarters in New York – encapsulate their own ideas and feelings about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Photos have the power to go beyond borders, which makes it an ideal medium to connect young people from all over the world,” said Kaoru Nemoto, Director of the UN Information Centre (UNIC) in Tokyo, which organized the exhibition “Spotlight on SDGs.”

With 17 goals and 169 targets, communicating the SDGs to the public has proven to be a challenge in many countries.  

But engaging youth is vital to successful implementation of those objectives by 2030, a target year for the international community to eradicate poverty, address climate change and build peaceful, inclusive societies for all.

In fact, young people played a key part in shaping the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and they, as agents of change, are expected to lead efforts to translate this vision into reality.

With this in mind, UNIC Tokyo and Sophia University put their heads together and came up with a student photo contest with special cooperation from Getty Images Japan.

“This partnership-driven photo contest encouraged young students to think hard about SDGs at their doorstep, visualize their perspective through their creativity, and have fun,” Ms. Nemoto told UN News.

Titled “My View on SDGs,” the contest encouraged students to reflect on the Goals, communicate their feelings in a photograph and share it with other people.

Over 600 submissions were received from students from 47 countries on five continents.

First prize went to a photo portraying a volunteer removing a tire from a beach in Lima, Peru, taken by a local university student, Nicolas Monteverde Bustamante.

“I was shocked and saddened by the number of tires strewn across the beach in a conservation area in Callao, near Lima,” said the 23 year old.
“The pollution of the ocean is one of the worst problems humanity faces at this time. Our culture of consuming and throwing away indiscriminately is poisoning our cities, our lands, our ocean, and finally, ourselves. It is in our hands to make our ocean a better place for all, without tires and trash.”



 Photo/Pang Yunian, 25, China (Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan)





“In the town of Shwe Kyin, in Myanmar, households have no electricity,” said 25-year-old Pang Yunian, from China, who was among the contest winners. “Yet, the villagers decided to prioritize education and used limited resources to build a primary school a few years ago.”







 Photo/Karin Imai, 20, Japan (Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan)
“My photo is simply a snapshot of a normal landscape in Japan,” said 20-year-old Karin Imai, Japan, whose entry also won a prize. “Yet for some reason, this tiny plant growing in the midst of tall trees caught my eye.”

She said its relative size seemed to emphasize, rather than diminish, its strength and willpower to grow.

“I also wanted to convey the importance of small discoveries as the same philosophy applies to the furthering of the SDGs… The accumulation of these small discoveries and actions will carry us towards a brighter and more sustainable future.”

The exhibition is on view through 10 August at UN Headquarters. 

Ms. Nemoto said that the exhibition coincides with the convening of the High-Level Political Forum on sustainable development – a mechanism UN Member States have mandated to carry out regular voluntary reviews of implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

“These prize-winning photos have been brought to UN Headquarters with an aim to encourage viewers to take ownership of SDGs as change makers,” she said.

UNIC Tokyo and Sophia University are co-sponsoring a second SDGs Student Photo Contest and are calling for entries by the 31 August deadline."



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Resetting the Mind: Israeli 'mental first-aid' method..."What we can do is stop the helplessness." "The opposite of helplessness is effective action. That's why first of all we need to activate the person, to diminish the helplessness...The two main goals are to quickly return a person to being functional in a way that would reduce the risk of getting killed, and reducing the risk for more serious disorders" in the future, such as PTSD,.

"Moshe Farchi says Israel's decades of conflict have afforded it "lots of experience" in dealing with trauma, leading to effective and science-based models of work.

"We made many mistakes and are learning from them," the head of stress, trauma and resilience studies at Israel's Tel-Hai College told AFP.

Farchi's model was developed during his years in the Israeli army, where he served as a mental health officer.

He saw shortcomings in such treatment because it "failed to reduce the element of anxiety and perception of the event as traumatic."

Farchi, a clinical social worker by training, also utilised his experience as a volunteer first responder in emergency medical organisations.

His principles are simple, easily applicable and, to the layman, possibly counterintuitive.

They are employed in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event such as an attack, serving as mental first-aid.

"One thinks that a person in distress should be contained, held," he told AFP.

But providing emotional support activates the recipient's emotional part of the brain at the expense of the area responsible for the ability to think and make decisions, he said.

- 'Resetting' the brain -

Thinking and making decisions are what the person needs to do in order to be freed of a "sense of helplessness."

"The given is that we can't stop the threat -- the rocket has hit, the event has taken place," he said. "What we can do is stop the helplessness."

"The opposite of helplessness is effective action. That's why first of all we need to activate the person, to diminish the helplessness," Farchi said.

Activating the person includes asking concrete and factual questions, giving him or her the ability to make decisions -- initially easy ones, such as if they want to drink a glass of water or take a break.

The idea of "resetting" a person who underwent a traumatic event using Farchi's method can have both immediate and long-term positive effects, according to the psychiatrist who currently heads the clinical branch in the Israeli army's mental health department.

"The two main goals are to quickly return a person to being functional in a way that would reduce the risk of getting killed, and reducing the risk for more serious disorders" in the future, such as PTSD, said Lieutenant Colonel Dr Ariel Ben Yehuda.

People in life-threatening situations tend to feel confused, lonely, frozen or disoriented, said Ben Yehuda, and "Farchi's method addresses these issues."

"This isn't psychiatric treatment, rather something very focused. You can do it in two minutes, but the idea is to 'reset' the person," Ben Yehuda noted.

The system is currently being implemented as part of soldiers' medical training, and takes just a few hours to teach.

- 'Not left alone' -

One place where Farchi has taken his method is the British city of Manchester where a suicide bombing killed 22 and wounded more than 100 on May 22.

The attack came as Dov Benyaacov-Kurtzman, a Scotland-born social worker who had lived in Israel for years, was working in Manchester on establishing a centre to provide emergency response for stress and trauma.

Benyaacov-Kurtzman had planned to launch his organisation, called Heads Up, in six months.

But the Manchester attack galvanised him into starting work and reaching out to Farchi to help with training the group's professionals and volunteers.

"At that moment they called and said 'come'," Farchi said recently in Tel Aviv before flying to Manchester.

Farchi has already trained local professionals who can carry out a "cultural translation" of the method in countries such as Germany, the Philippines and Argentina.

He was also set to travel for training in London.

A key aspect of Farchi's method is that it should not be reserved for professionals, but spread to as many people as possible.

The 2014 conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip was an opportunity to examine Farchi's method.

Residents in Ofakim, an Israeli town that was subject to heavy rocket fire from Gaza, underwent Farchi's intervention, showing no occurrence of PTSD in the months following the war, Farchi said.

"The chance that a person (experiencing trauma) will be next to a professional is very small, but that a layman will be next to him is very high," Farchi said."



'via Blog this'Israeli 'mental first-aid' method offered to attack victims abroad:

Wellness Pilipinas International: WELLNESS IN ENVIRONMENT: Pililla windmill farm amo...

WELLNESS IN ENVIRONMENT: Pililla windmill farm among selected venues for celebration of ASEAN’s 50th anniversary

 "RIZAL, Philippines — Alongside the Philippines’ chairmanship of the ASEAN Summit is the celebration of ASEAN’s 50th founding anniversary.

For this, various activities will be held in different parts of the country for the celebration.

One of the activities will be held at the windmill farm in the town of Pililla, Rizal.

The town of Pililla is preparing special and memorable activities for the participants of the ASEAN founding anniversary celebration.

“So we’re planning activity here at the wind farm, and we’re going to try to light up some of the turbines in the ASEAN colors of red, blue and yellow. It will be done at 7:00 pm,” said Pililla tourism office OIC Jojo Masinsin.

The windmill farm in Pililla is a private electricity producing farm that supplies electricity to over 60,000 households in many parts of Luzon.

There are 27 wind turbines that stand on a hill overlooking Laguna de Bay.

said this is a chance to show the world the beauty of Pililla despite being a small town.

“This wind farm is operated by the private corporation Altenergy Wind One Corporation. But even though they’re a private corporation they help promote tourism for us. They’re very generous in allowing us to use their place for the tourists,” Masinsin said

Wellness Pilipinas International: WELLNESS IN ENVIRONMENT: Pililla windmill farm amo...:  "RIZAL, Philippines — Alongside the Philippines’ chairmanship of the ASEAN Summit is the celebration of ASEAN’s 50th founding anniver...

Wellness Pilipinas International: WHO Update: Investing in health targets within the...

WHO Update: Investing in health targets within the Sustainable Development Goals could prevent 97 million premature deaths globally between now and 2030, and add as much as 8.4 years of life expectancy reports the new publication, "The SDG Health Price Tag

"World Health Organization estimates cost of reaching global health targets by 2030

News release

17 JULY 2017 | GENEVA - The SDG Health Price Tag, published today in The Lancet Global Health, estimates the costs and benefits of progressively expanding health services in order to reach 16 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) health targets in 67 low- and middle-income countries that account for 75% of the world’s population.

The analysis shows that investments to expand services towards universal health coverage and the other SDG health targets could prevent 97 million premature deaths globally between now and 2030, and add as much as 8.4 years of life expectancy in some countries. While most countries can afford the investments needed, the poorest nations will need assistance to reach the targets.

"Universal health coverage is ultimately a political choice. It is the responsibility of every country and national government to pursue it," Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, wrote in a commentary accompanying the paper in The Lancet Global Health.

The SDG Health Price Tag models two scenarios: an “ambitious” scenario in which investments are sufficient for countries to attain the health targets in the SDGs by 2030, and a “progress” scenario in which countries get two thirds or more of the way to the targets.

In both scenarios, health systems investments such as employing more health workers; building and operating new clinics, hospitals and laboratories; and buying medical equipment account for about 75% of the total. The remaining costs are for medicines, vaccines, syringes and other commodities used to prevent or treat specific diseases, and for activities such as training, health campaigns and outreach to vulnerable communities.

Under the "ambitious" scenario, achieving the SDG health targets would require new investments increasing over time from an initial US$ 134 billion annually to $371 billion, or $58 per person, by 2030.

The analysis shows that 85% of these costs can be met with domestic resources, although as many as 32 of the world’s poorest countries will face an annual gap of up to US$ 54 billion and will continue to need external assistance. High-income countries were not included in the analysis but other estimates show they can all afford to provide universal health coverage with essential health services to their citizens.

The ambitious scenario includes adding more than 23 million health workers, and building more than 415 000 new health facilities, 91% of which would be primary health care centres.

These investments would boost health spending as a proportion of gross domestic product across all 67 countries from an average of 5.6% to 7.5%. The global average for health spending as a proportion of GDP is 9.9%. Although higher spending does not necessarily translate to improved health, making the right investments at the right time can.

Read more: Wellness Pilipinas International: WHO Update: Investing in health targets within the...: "World Health Organization estimates cost of reaching global health targets by 2030 News release 17 JULY 2017 | GENEVA - The SDG H...