The United Nations Academic Impact and the Millennium Campus Network (MCN) are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship, a semester-long leadership development program that helps students design and implement community-level initiatives to promote sustainability and help others in need.
Kimberley Bates, a Millennium Fellow for the Class of 2020, aspires to bring young people together through the concept of “positive alternative narrative”. Her Millennium Fellows Project focuses on?SDG16 : Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.
It was a sense of emptiness that brought Kimberley, a university student studying criminology in Australia, on the Millennium Fellowship Programme.
She had just finished her research trip to China, Singapore, India and Thailand where she conducted research in such fields as mental health, domestic violence and cybersecurity. Back in Australia, she was left with a feeling of wanting to do something new, and that was when she came across the Fellowship offered by MCN and the United Nations Academic Impact. “So, once I realized that the Millennium Fellowship allows you to initiate a certain project, to advance the SDGs, it really made me go ‘Yes, I want to do that.’”
Her mission as a Millennium Fellow was clear from the beginning; promoting the power of storytelling. Kimberley knew from her personal experience that opening oneself up to the world goes a long way to achieving inner peace. In her case, sharing her personal story to the public helped her not only come to terms with her complex past full of “wrong and sometimes dangerous choices”, but also allowed her to reconcile with her family, with whom she had lost touch for years. “I like the transformative power of healing by just having a space to share your story or hearing someone else's story. I have always held that idea close to my heart, the healing power of storytelling.”
Such experience pushed her to establish the e-publication project “Power of Youth”, which provides an opportunity for healing for the storytellers and an inspiration for its readers. Kimberley believes that inner peace is essential to achieving peace in a wider context, thus contributing to SDG 16. They were able to put together stories of seventeen individuals, covering various topics such as mental illness, homelessness, and refugees.
The e-publication has registered over 500 page views so far, and Kimberley has recently been invited to speak at a webinar about her work. But for her, the Power of Youth project has just begun. She wants to continue to shed light on young people’s stories and experiences, while at the same time act as a bridge connecting young people in Australia to the SDGs.
She is thankful for the time spent as a Millennium Fellow, and advises anyone who has an interest in the SDGs to apply to the Fellowship. "I feel like the experience at the Fellowship really gave me the tenacity to see the project to fruition. It also allowed for other young people to have those opportunities, and to get the training and to learn about the United Nations Academic Impact, these are really important things that young people do not know about or do not have the skillset for."
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To learn more about Kimberley and support her work, visit her
