Adversities begin a transformative journey

Maya was a young woman who lived in a small town in a poor family. Her father had passed away when she was a child, leaving her mother to navigate the storm of financial difficulties alone. Despite the hardships, Maya’s mother, a resilient soul, worked tirelessly to provide for Maya and her siblings.

As Maya entered her teenage years, her family’s struggles intensified. The burden of financial strain weighed heavily on her shoulders. One day, as Maya scrolled through a local newspaper, she spotted an advertisement for a short story competition. Maya was good at writing stories and decided to submit one of her stories.

To her surprise, Maya’s story won the competition. She earned a scholarship to pursue her passion for writing. With this newfound opportunity, Maya spread her wings and soared above the difficulties that once confined her spirit. She continued to write inspirational stories and became an accomplished writer. Her books were published and sold across the globe.

Maya’s story has two lessons for us:

• Each one of us is good at something. We must Identify our core strength and make use of it.
• Struggles and adversities are not the end but the beginning of a transformative journey.

We are living in times of multiple crises: wars in Palestine and Ukraine, impact of a devastating pandemic and climate crisis. Numbers from the Palestine not included, by May 2023, the devastating consequences of war, conflict and human rights violations had displaced a staggering 110 million people, according to the Sustainable Development Goals Report Special Edition 2023. We are off track in achieving the sustainable development goals by 2030.

Can the world rise to the occasion and begin a transformative journey towards its commitments to ending poverty, ending inequalities, promoting peace, and making the world a better place for everyone?  The time is clicking fast. We have only six years to deliver on the sustainable development goals.