Year 2025 | Vol XVI | Issue No. 1 (August – November 2025)
Author: Lynne Moten and Steve Rocha
Abstract
This article explores the integration of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into education as a pathway to embedding justice, equity, and sustainability in school culture. Beginning with the adoption of the Global Goals in 2015 and child-led advocacy through PRATYeK’s NINE IS MINE campaign, it highlights how young voices have shaped global conversations, including landmark moments such as the youth address at the UN General Assembly.
Drawing on Nelson Mandela’s call to action against poverty and inequality, the paper argues that schools must move beyond teaching subjects in isolation to cultivating socially responsible citizens. Practical strategies are outlined for embedding justice across subjects, daily routines, and school events, with examples such as composting, inclusive sports, gender sensitive rhymes, and empathy exercises that place students in the shoes of vulnerable peers.
The article distinguishes between charity and justice, emphasizing the need for teachers to internalize human rights, climate literacy, and structural inequities to guide students effectively. Ultimately, it advocates for an all-school approach where teachers, students, parents, and management collectively nurture justice as a lived value. By reframing education as preparation for a humane, just, and sustainable world, schools can transform children into global goalkeepers and change-makers.
The UN Global Goals: A Beginning of Collective Action
In September 2015, world leaders gathered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and committed to ending poverty, reducing inequality, and reversing climate change by 2030. This historic decision was preceded by The World We Want vast grassroots consultations socio-economic strata. One of its most notable contributions came from the child-led advocacy initiative NINE IS MINE, convened by PRATYeK, which consulted over 120,000 children representing diverse cultures, languages (including sign language), abilities, disabilities, terrains, and challenges. For its inclusivity, the campaign received special recognition from the UN.
Call to Justice: Mandela’s Timeless Reminder
Nelson Mandela, in his 2005 Trafalgar Square address, called poverty and inequality “terrible scourges of our times.” He compared the Global Campaign for Action Against Poverty to the global movements against slavery and apartheid, reminding us: “Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation.” His call continues to inspire young voices advocating for justice.
Teens at the UN: Voices for Change Goalkeepers
” Schools in India, Australia, on 24 September 2015, on the eve of the adoption of the Global Goals, three Indian teenagers demonstrated the power of inclusive advocacy at the UN. Poorna Malavath, the youngest girl to scale Mount Everest at 13, addressed diplomats, urging for a dedicated children’s goal (referred to by children as SDG- 18). Her speech was simultaneously translated by Swarna Lakshmi, a visually impaired child, while Vaibhav, who had a hearing impairment, conveyed it in sign language. All three children were 15 years old.
Their presence itself was a message: if teenagers who spoke different languages and had different abilities could unite to deliver a joint speech, the world could certainly unite to make poverty, climate change, and inequality history. Their speech earned a standing ovation, the only one that day.
Behind this coordination were two students from Indian schools who, with simple finger taps on the speakers’ shoulders, guided pacing and timing. Having grown up in schools embedding justice into their curriculum, they chose the background role, showing that meaningful impact often comes from unseen contributions.
PRATYeK and NINE IS MINE: Sustaining the Movement
Since then, PRATYeK’s NINEISMINE campaign has trained students globally to be “global UK, Ireland, and the USA have adopted its pedagogy. As a formal UNICEF partner with UN ECOSOC status, PRATYeK was invited to conduct consultations with children for India’s Voluntary National Review on the SDGs. Currently, it is pioneering IN-clusive United Nations (IN-U.N.s) as alternatives to traditional Model UNs, enabling children to shape the post- 2030 Inclusive Development Goals (IN.D.Gs).
Teachers Teach People, Not Subjects
As educator Sydney Chaffee argues in her TEDx talk “Social Justice Belongs to Our School,” education cannot exist in a vacuum. Schools must prepare children to be active citizens capable of addressing global challenges. She stresses: “Teachers do not teach subjects, they teach people.”
The Latin root of education, educere (“to draw out”), reminds us that schooling must draw out the best in children and prepare them for meaningful community life. Cornell West’s famous line captures this beautifully: “Justice is what love looks like in public.”
Education as a Tool for Social Justice
Embedding justice is not about adding new lessons but about reframing existing learning. Problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and historical inquiry already exist in our systems; channelled properly, they foster empathy, leadership, participation, and a commitment to justice.
Too Young for Justice?
Children naturally understand fairness. The familiar cry of “It’s not fair!” reveals their innate sense of justice. While young learners may not process the harshest realities, it is never too early to introduce sustainability, equality, and inclusion. Early habits composting, reducing waste, conserving water, sharing food, and mindful energy use lay foundations for lifelong responsible practices.
Practical Classroom Examples
- Childcare centres: compost vegetable peels, recycle water for plants, or start vegetable gardens.
- Daily practices: encourage finishing food, sharing leftovers, using steel containers, and conserving water and energy.
- Values integration: focus less on elaborate activities, more on weaving justice and sustainability into every lesson.
Twists Across Subjects
- English: use gender-sensitive rhymes and stories (SDG 5).
- Maths: count campus trees and imagine their loss (SDG 15).
- Science: discuss water scarcity (SDG 6).
- Sports: highlight children deprived of playtime due to labour (SDG 10).
- Art: fold paper into fish and birds (SDG 14).
- This cross-curricular infusion connects learning with global goals while deepening empathy.
A Different Frame of Mind
Placing the picture of an anonymous child from a vulnerable community in class, naming them, and asking how that “classmate” would experience lessons, whether homework, field trips, or digital access, helps students reflect on privilege and equity. This imaginative empathy exercise bridges classroom learning with real- world disparities.
Beyond the Routine: Using School Events
Every school activity can become a justice- learning opportunity:
Assemblies: observe International Justice Days.
- Parent-Teacher Day: engage parents in justice-focused discussions.
- Grandparents’ Day: affirm the rights of the elderly.
- Fancy Dress: challenge gender stereotypes.
- Sports Day: add inclusive games.
- Concerts & Independence Day: showcase diverse cultures and abilities.
- Elocution & Show and Tell: use themes of fairness, care, and sustainability.
Charity vs. Justice
Nelson Mandela reminded the world that poverty is man-made, not natural, and eradicating it is justice, not charity. Ronald Rolheiser similarly distinguishes:
- Charity feeds the hungry; justice ensures no one goes hungry.
- Charity shows kindness; justice dismantles racism.
- Charity helps victims; justice tackles causes of war.
Children can grasp seeds of this difference through simple practices of fairness and sharing. But for this to succeed, teachers must themselves be well-versed in justice, human rights, and climate literacy.
Most teachers come from relatively privileged contexts. To guide children effectively, they must also learn to see the world from the perspective of the excluded. As the saying goes: “Where you stand determines what you see.” This requires familiarity with the 17 SDGs (and the proposed SDG-18 for children), the 169 targets, and the language of human rights safety, accessibility, sustainability, participation, and equity.
Training in structural injustices, power imbalances, and historic inequities equips teachers to recognise links between global goals and their own lesson plans.
An All-School Approach
Embedding justice requires participation from the entire school ecosystem: teachers, students, parents, management, and support staff. Children will inevitably question adult practices on resource use, privilege, or treatment of workers. Such questioning is central to learning.
Schools must therefore prepare not only students but also parents and the governing body for conversations that challenge traditions, lifestyles, and the status quo. A shared vision ensures values are reinforced at home and in the community.
Justice in education is not an isolated subject; it is an all-school, all-student, all-teacher, all- parent, all-activity approach. When every lesson, routine, and event reflects justice, schools truly prepare children to shape a humane, just, and sustainable world.
References
- United Nations (2015). Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. New York: United Nations.
- Mandela, N. (2005). Speech at the Trafalgar Square Make Poverty History Rally. London, UK.
- PRATYeK (2020). NINEISMINE Campaign Reports. New Delhi: PRATYeK.
- Chaffee, S. (2017). TEDx Talk: Social Justice Belongs to Our Schools. [TEDx Talks].
- Rolheiser, R. (1999). The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality. New York: Doubleday.
- West, C. (1993). Race Matters. Boston: Beacon Press.
About the Author
Lynne Moten is a service-learning programs facilitator based in Australia. She has a broad experience in assisting schools to grow programs that develop compassion and empathy in students while discovering their meaning and purpose. These programs are easily embedded into well-being programs and across the curriculum.
Steve Rocha is a child rights advocate since 1990. He is the Founder-Director and Vision and Identity Leader of PRATYeK, an organization that visions ‘every child’ being trained to advocate ‘for every right, for everyone’. He is a National Steering Committee member of India’s civil society coalition for the United National Sustainable Development Goals called Wada Na Todo Abhiyan in India.
