ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2020
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. In the three months the application was open in 2020, 15,159 young leaders applied to join the Class of 2020 on 1,458 campuses across 135 nations. 80 campuses worldwide (just 6%) were selected to host the 1,000+ Millennium Fellows. The Class of 2020 is bold, innovative, and inclusive.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT LARA STARCK, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2020.
University College London | London, United Kingdom | Advancing SDG 10 & UNAI 3
" I am excited to be a Millennium Fellow because it will allow me to connect with like-minded peers and work together with them on projects which contribute to achieving the SDGs. I am passionate about international development and eager to build my project to have a positive impact on the life of refugees in London. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: Impact Initiative
Impact Initiative is a UCL society organised around two projects.
The first one is a mentoring program for refugees in London. It is divided into four age groups (15-18 years, 18-25 years, 25-35 years, 35 years upwards), student volunteers can decide which age group they feel more comfortable mentoring. Students will help their mentees with a specific project (applying to university, learning English, finding a job) through an initial in-person meeting, followed by a weekly email/Skype exchange and a monthly in-person meeting. The Impact Initiative team will guide the students through their mentoring, providing them with the necessary training. They will also be present during the in-person meetings. The aim is to help refugees access better opportunities through regular mentoring by students.
The other project consists of familiarising UCL students with the 17 SDGs.
The society will hold seminars to train UCL students (starting with those with leadership roles) to integrate the 17 SDGs in their initiatives and will invite guests who work on these goals. The aim is, inspired by the University of Bologna, to align projects with specific Sustainable Development Goals, thus contributing to the advancement of the United Nations 2030 Agenda as a university. The first goal is to create the UCL Society with 50 committed students.
For the mentorship program, we will contact 10 local NGOs to collaborate with them and find 30 refugees who would like to participate in the program. By the end of the Millennium Fellowship, Impact Initiative will have 30 active mentor-mentee pairs. For the other part of Impact Initiative, we will have 1 seminar with a different UCL Society every 2 weeks - a total of 8 seminars at the end of the Fellowship. We will also have 1 event with a guest per month. These seminars and events will each touch 15 people minimum: Impact Initiative will thus have familiarised more than 180 UCL Students with the SDGs in December. Impact Initiative will also try to enrol 15 new students per month, bringing the total of active members at around 100 at the end of the Fellowship.
About the Millennium Fellow
Lara is an International Relations student at University College London, passionate about international development and international security topics. Her volunteering experiences as a tutor for refugee children in London and as an ambassador for the Almacube incubator at the Università di Bologna have inspired her to create the Impact Initiative. She wishes to positively impact the lives of the people taking part in this program, by helping the mentees access better opportunities and by familiarising UCL students with the 17 SDGs.
