Former Frome student returns to United Nations for sustainability talks

A former Frome College student has returned to the United Nations headquarters in New York to take part in discussions around sustainable development, youth leadership and climate change.

Shakira Saunders, 22, was invited back to the UN after previously delivering a speech there about the role of higher education in supporting the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Shakira first attended the United Nations during her third year at De Montfort University Leicester while completing an internship with the United Nations Academic Impact programme.

She was invited to speak about the Global Higher Education Consensus, which looked at how universities can incorporate the Sustainable Development Goals into education.

She said, “The opportunity originally came when I was doing an internship with the United Nations Academic Impact in my third year of university. My manager texted me and asked if I could travel to New York. That was not something that happened every day, so I went.

“It was such a big space; it was quite scary. I spoke to as many people as I could and I felt really at home there, which was strange.”

Earlier this year, Shakira was invited back to the UN to be involved in discussions around the launch of the Global Higher Education Consensus and to share what she had been doing since her first visit.

Shakira said her key takeaway from being involved in the discussions was the importance of giving young people a greater role in decision-making.

“To me, the experiences showed that young people are wanted in spaces like these and there is room for us,” she said. “There are people out there that want to hear our opinions.

“I think a lot of the time in educational spaces it is a lot of older people that make the decisions that they think look good. The decisions don’t necessarily impact us in the way the older people think they would.”

Shakira, who now lives in Bridgend, attended Christchurch First School, Oakfield Academy and Frome College, and regularly returns to Frome to visit her family,

“If a little girl from Frome can be involved in these conversations, then it tells me and hopefully other young boys and girls that their opinions are valued too and there are people out there who will listen to them,” she said.

Shakira said she hoped her experience would encourage more young people to look for opportunities to get involved.

“From what I am aware, there are not many spaces generally where young people can have their opinions,” she said.

“There are opportunities out there for young people. I am not saying that people should forget where they came from and immediately turn 18 and move out of Frome. It is a lovely place and it helped build my foundation.

“It just makes me feel really accomplished because you don’t often see someone from a small town accomplish something like going to the United Nations. I feel really honoured and hopefully it inspires others.”