Millennium Development Challenge
The Millennium Development Challenge (MDC) is a day-long, school-wide competition at the Kelowna Community Theatre organized to bring awareness of issues like global poverty, literacy, environmental sustainability, and the spread of AIDS and malaria among Kelowna's youth and help them get involved in addressing these urgent needs. The challenge students face in the MDC is to demonstrate how they could help one community in one developing country make significant progress toward one of the Millennium Development Goals by spending just $5,000.00. The group that convinces the judges that they can get the most "bang for their bucks" will actually receive a $5,000.00 cheque from Global Citizen Kelowna to contribute to an international agency of their choosing. Second place students get $2,000.00 for the international agency of their choice, and the third, fourth and fifth place students get $1,000.00 each for agencies of their choice.
Past winners of the MDC told us that they received an incredible sense of empowerment by making a concrete contribution to these urgent social issues in developing countries. Indeed, that is the goal of MDC organizers: that students would not only become aware of these development issues, but also realize that it is within their ability as young people to have a significant impact in the lives of our global neighbours in developing countries.
The MDC is open to youth in the Kelowna and surrounding area who are in grades 10, 11 and 12. Students may participate as individuals or in groups up to five members. Each group or individual needs to have a sponsoring adult to help students ensure the presentations meet contest guidelines. This adult must also attend, with the student(s) on the day of the Development Challenge at the Kelowna Community Theatre.
2010 is the fourth annual MDC and will be held at the Kelowna Community Theatre on April 22nd. On this date, only the top ten presentations will be viewed by the panel of judges. To win one of these ten spots, students must fill out, in detail, the APPLICATION TO ENTER. Contact ssmith@heritagechristian.ca for an Application and / or further information. This abstract is due by April 8th at 4:00 p.m. at Heritage Christian School. (You may submit your abstract anytime before this date.) This abstract is used to judge which of the many entries are deemed to have the most potential to have an impact on the Millennium Development Goals.