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Physical and mental health for young children
Physical and mental health for young children

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2.2 Sustainable Development Goals

Children who live in low-income countries are less likely to have access to health services and education. In order to improve this situation, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were launched in 2000. In 2015, an update to the MDGS resulted in the ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs). In the following activity you will explore more about the importance of the SDGs in relation to children’s health.

Activity 1 The Sustainable Development Goals

Timing: 15 minutes

This activity is in two parts.

First of all, watch the Video ‘Transitioning from the MDGs to the SDGs’ which gives a summary of the MDGs and explains the transition to the SDGs.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1 Transitioning from the MDGs to the SDGs
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Video 1 Transitioning from the MDGs to the SDGs
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As you watch the video, consider the ways that you think the SDGs are helpful to improving children’s health

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The video explains that there are 17 goals. Access the following link: Health: United Nations Sustainable Development [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . On the right-hand side of the website, there are icons that explain the aim of each goal. Goal 3 is related to ‘Good health and wellbeing’. Take a look at the 17 goals and the details of Goal 3 and think about how the goals will help to improve children’s health and wellbeing.

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A screenshot from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals website showing Goal 3 Good health and wellbeing
Figure 2 The Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 3 Good Health and Wellbeing

The aim of the goals is to improve the lives of all people in low-income countries and to ‘address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity, and peace and justice’ (United Nations, 2019).

You will see in the content about Goal 3 that the impact of the global pandemic has had a negative impact on children’s health and made the challenge of improving the global health of our children even more difficult to achieve. Being presented with such alarming factors, it can feel overwhelming and difficult to identify what we can do to improve the situation. However, there are some relatively simple actions that we can all do that make a significant contribution to better health. One example of something that we can all do is to ensure that we all take on board the importance of handwashing.