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Mumbai, India—-The much-awaited first edition of the Global Citizen India Festival held in Mumbai on November 19 saw 80,000 young people from across India join forces with political representatives and leaders to bring about real change to India and the world.

Leaders from the local, state, and federal government came together on stage at the festival as well as in video appearances and messages to the Global Citizens watching around the world to commit to help realise Quality Education (SDG 4), Gender Equality (SDG 5) and Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6)

Those physically present at the festival represented the voice of a much larger mass—In just two months, more than 500,000 youth in India took more than 200,000 lakh actions calling on political, faith and business leaders along with celebrities to be more accountable on education, gender equality, water and sanitation.

UNESCO MGIEP partnered with Global Citizen India to create a unique SDG 4 Inclusive Education Journey to advocate for difference learners – the one in six people worldwide who require their educational materials, teacher delivery, and learning assessment to be different from standard education models and practices. Difference learning includes the following diagnoses (or 4Ds): Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia and Dysgraphia. Learning difficulties, unlike physical disabilities, cannot be easily seen and detected hence, we call this The Seen Unseen!

A total of 27,800 young global citizens participated in the two-step, 10-day long inclusive education journey.

It required them to sign a petition to the ministers of education asking them to include the needs of different learners in the New Education Policy as well as tweet to them the following:

#EducationMinistersofIndia.Please recognize the need for universal screening tests and trained teachers for different learners

The Global Citizen India concert was headlined by music giants Coldplay and had international artists such as Jay-Z and Demi Lovato also performing alongside Bollywood bigwigs such as Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan.

Related articles:

—http://mgiep.unesco.org/the-un-learn-workshop-on-difference-learning-for-instructors-09-10-april-2016-iit-delhi-2/

Contact Information:

–Ms Radhika BHATNAGAR r.bhatnagar@unesco.org, Communications Officer