Take a ‘selfie’ to commemorate World Population Day
World Population Day will be commemorated this Friday, July 11.
It will be tied in with a youth campaign designed to gather millions of ‘selfies’ from across the world.
World Population Day is a global observance and not a public holiday. The day is annually observed to reaffirm the human right to plan for a family.
It also encourages activities, events and information to help make this right a reality throughout the globe.
World Population Day aims to increase people’s awareness on various population issues such as the importance of family planning, including gender equality, poverty, maternal health and human rights. The day is celebrated worldwide by business groups, community organisations and individuals in many ways.
Activities include seminar discussions, educational information sessions and essay competitions.
In keeping with the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) focus on adolescent well-being, and to help include a new goal for young people in the post-2015 development agenda, the theme of the World Population Day 2014 is Investing in Young People.
This year’s World Population Day commemorations will be tied in with the UNFPA’s Youth Campaign designed to gather millions of ‘selfies’ from young people, decision-makers, high-profile celebrities and others, in support of UNFPA’s proposal for a youth goal to be included in the post-2015 development agenda.
The idea behind the ‘selfie’ campaign will be to gather these photos as a show of support and then use the collection to communicate to decision-makers that young people all over the world want to make sure that they are ‘put in the picture’ of future development plans.
There are 1.8 billion people aged 10-24 years in the world, making up one quarter of the world’s population.
In South Africa, nearly forty percent of the population is made up young people between the ages of 15 and 35.
People can send their selfies via social media platforms with the hashtag #WPD2014.
The global campaign will run until September next year. – @TumeloBoksburg
