Last week my niece Delilah was part of a historic moment in time, when on January 15th of 2015 15-year-olds from around the world joined a movement spearheaded by Save The Children and the ONE Campaign to ask governments to do better, and to involve youth in the process of  building the future they want to see. This was part of the launch of the #action2015 campaign to engage the public in the historic opportunity this year that we all have to shape the future of our world.

As the mother of a fifteen year old  daughter as well it is amazing to think that in the year that my daughter was being born, the Millennium Development Goals were set in motion. The eight Millennium Development Goals had been put in place by the then 189 member nations of the United Nations to free people around the globe from extreme poverty and the depravations that cause or are a result of it. In the year 2000 my baby was my universe, so I am grateful that while our lives were so nuclear, steps were being taken to ensure that she would grow up to live in a greater world working towards equality for all.

2015 is significant as this first set of goals expire December 31st of this year, and in 2015 transformative meetings are being held to write new ones. This year will dictate the post-2015 course of action to keep the momentum of progress going. Great progress has been made in the past two decades, child mortality has been halved, the number of maternal deaths have been reduced by at least a 1/4, and the world is nearly (99%) Polio free. In fact Bill Gates believes that by 2035 there will barely be any poverty stricken countries left.

The exciting thing to me is that these facts prove that progress is possible with the right infrastructure in place.  The children of the millennium, our fifteen year olds who have matured with these first set of global goals, and others of their generation, will eventually be the stewards of the next phase of eliminating poverty in this world. In their lifetimes it is possible that they will see an end to global poverty as we know it.