Working with Global Co Lab
Hey! My name is Beau Quandt and I'm the social media intern for Global Co-Lab and Teens Dream. If you have been on one of our social media sites recently, you have read my words and we thank you for that! Working with the Global Co-Lab has been a truly wonderful experience. No day has been like the one that came before it and it's that kind of flexibility and passion that I have really loved about my time here. Everyone working in and with the Co-Lab is dedicated and passionate about what they do and will see it through to the end.
I had learned about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals a few years back while I was in college and, to be honest, at first it was a bit overwhelming. I felt like we were so far behind on all the goals and I was unsure about how I felt. I've been working on cutting back, to reduce, reuse, and recycle but I still felt small in the world. Fast forward. I started interning at the Co-Lab and I started meeting some of the teens and changemakers that work with the Co-Lab and what I got was a real sense of hope, that change was not just possible, but inevitable.
Goal #7 of the SDG's is the one that always stuck out to me the most: to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. During my time at the Co-Lab, I attended a Gala with Leaders in Energy where I heard people from 4 different generations talk about what they're doing in energy conservation and plastic reduction. Two of those groups were millennials/gen z's from the Co Lab's Eco Teen Action Network that they created with the Smithsonian, focused on climate change, hunger, and fighting plastics. It was amazing to see these teen leaders come up and display their work and all the progress made.
I mentioned earlier that no day working at the Co-Lab was the same as the one that came before it and it really is true, even in the social media world. Some days I would work on posts and promoting them to get the furthest reach, other days I would be whisked off to meetings, other days I met fundraising professionals and created flyers for them. The part I'll remember the most is talking to and hearing ideas from the teens themselves. They have great, new ideas that need to be heard because they will give us a bright future.
