The maiden edition of the African Youth Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summit has successfully ended. The two-day summit which commenced on November 1, 2017 was in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP Ghana). The event took place at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping and Training Centre (KAIPTC) in Accra.

The aim of the summit was to provide an open and all-inclusive platform for young people to dialogue and address relevant issues affecting the youth and also bring to bear innovative ways of ending poverty, gender inequality, unemployment, conflict and other perineal problems affecting the sub-region.

Pivoted on the theme “Youth as Drivers of Sustainable Development”, the conference saw over 300 participants from across the African continent.

Plenary sessions which ran concurrently were held for panels of young men and women to deliver presentations to digest the various SDGs to other participants. One of such presentations that caught our attention was that which bothered on SDG16 – Peace, Justice and Strong institutions – delivered by Adel Abu Baker.

Described by the moderator of the session as “a brilliant student from Lincoln Community School’’, the highly motivated 15-year-old student educated attentive listeners on who had the ‘‘moral and legal obligation to protect refugees and those in danger’’. This and many other questions borne out of curiosity were precursors to embarking on such a project.

According to him, his presentation was inspired by his family’s historical antecedent which was necessitated by the over six decades old Palestinian conflict. He eloquently with a repertoire of facts, journeyed the audience through the hows and whys.

‘‘I decided to go into this topic because I had several questions after looking back at my family history. My grandparents were in Jordan during the war in 1948 and after the war, they were forced to leave the country for better economic opportunities. After that they ended up in Kuwait; my mother was born and raised there till 1990 when Iraq invaded and she was forced to leave the country’’.

His focus was mainly on the Syrian refugee crises largely due to his Middle-Eastern roots albeit he was not oblivious to the African situation and thus the Budumburam refugees who are remnants of the Liberian civil war.

At 14, he birthed the idea of a game board aimed at educating players on the realities of refugees. Although the concept took four months to complete, beginning in September 2016, he flawlessly demonstrated how he has used this “prototype. . . . to educate my teachers and faculty, some of who are in their forties’’. He believes that age is not a barrier and thus, the change that young people seek to see in the world begins with them.

“Even at my age, only 15 years; look at what I have been able to come up with. So you can imagine the impact we can make as we grow into our 20s and 30s. The change we are looking for can happen if we all become innovative while we are young”.

Beyond the vicissitudes and uncertainties of refugees and the obligations of governments and other stakeholders in protecting these vulnerable ones, Abu Baker is also sensitive to other nagging problems such as people living with cleft lips. Together with his friends at school, he has set up a club whose primary aim is delivering supplies to patients who successfully go through corrective surgeries organised by Operation Smile Ghana. The passion expressed in the light of this warranted the question ‘‘are you a Ghanaian?’’.

Contrary to our expectation, the light-complexioned young man with curly hair, sporting a dapper suit and with an American accent replied to our amazement ‘‘yes, sure I am a Ghanaian national. I have been here almost all my life’’.

Adel Abu Baker’s interests lie in International Relations and Political Science and anything that bothers on human rights. He is passionate about helping his community become a better one in whatever way he can. He believes that small beginnings are the stepping stones to greater heights.

The summit is envisaged to be a bi-annual event aimed at elevating the voices of young people like Adel Abu Baker while creating a community of purpose for co-generation of ideas and awareness on the SDGs.