send leaders into space, free electricity, dignity : Goats and Soda : NPR

First graders from The Pals College of Atlanta share their hopes for the world.

The Pals College of Atlanta

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The Pals College of Atlanta

First graders from The Pals College of Atlanta share their hopes for the world.

The Pals College of Atlanta

Who says three needs must be the restrict? NPR requested luminaries like Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and the White Home’s Raj Panjabi and others to share their dreams for the coming year.

Then NPR put out the decision to you: If cash have been no object and also you had unanimous help, what would you want for the world in 2023? From close to and much, together with a trainer from The Pals College of Atlanta who despatched in her college students’ needs, here is a number of your ideas.

Submissions have been edited for size and readability.

Cherish our pale blue dot

My dream for human form is that individuals would cease trashing the ocean. –Mira, 1st Grade

My want is that every youngster is taught the fundamentals of ecology and our complete reliance on pure programs. Many youngsters do not know the place their water comes from or the place their waste goes. With no educated inhabitants, insurance policies that profit all of us are laborious to attain. –Jane Eller, retired director of the Kentucky Environmental Schooling Council, a state company

Prolong the olive department

My dream for humankind is for folks to have peaceable days on a regular basis of their souls. –Shannon, 1st grader

My want is for the Russia/Ukrainian conflict to stop quickly and diplomatically. Lack of lives, obliteration of dwellings, civic and cultural buildings and the opportunity of nuclear weapon utilization has positioned the world in peril. The billions of {dollars} spent ought to have gone to handle local weather change and international meals insecurity. –Sarah Wright, retired pediatrician from Oregon

My want for 2023 is that leaders of all nations may fly into orbit to view our planet from house. I’m of the opinion that this expertise would have a profound affect on every chief and supply perspective on priorities. –Carter Alexander, Suwanee, Georgia

My want for 2023 is that wherever you might be, discover win-win-win options to issues. Many individuals play win-lose video games in all points of life with out understanding what successful is or realizing extra individuals are impacted than the 2 opponents. Generally merely having the ability to compete is a win. Many will not be so fortunate. Kids are all the time watching. In the event that they observe us creating win-win-win options with out demeaning “losers” they’ll naturally wish to do the identical. –Joel Stegner, retired market analysis director, Edina, Minn.

First graders at The Pals College of Atlanta want for kindness and peace in 2023.

The Pals College of Atlanta

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The Pals College of Atlanta

My dream for humankind is for everyone to have peace of their household. A sort household can be form to their youngsters and assist them to be form to others. –Seva, 1st grade

My want is that gun violence will be prevented. Whereas the U.S. is an outlier in unsafe gun legal guidelines, the issue of gun violence is international. My son usually tries to think about his 11-year-old life in a spot with out the specter of gun violence, and it breaks my coronary heart that he might by no means have that have. –Kelsey Energy, proprietor of Charleston Energy Household Backyard, a mini orchard and market backyard in St. Louis, Mo.

Let children be children

My want for 2023 is that we acknowledge that an 18-year-old individual just isn’t absolutely an grownup besides legally. Whereas many people know 18-year-olds who’re fairly mature, the human mind doesn’t full its neurological growth till roughly age 25. One of many last mind areas to develop controls govt perform – guiding decision-making and supporting the administration of impulses. But, we within the U.S. topic 18-year-olds to an grownup courtroom jurisdiction in a legal continuing. An 18-year-old can get married, get a tattoo, donate blood, play the lottery or become involved in some types of on-line playing. They’ll enlist into navy service and even go into the battlefield. After we let 18-year-olds assist determine the result of a authorized case for an additional individual as a juror, we’re placing decision-making into the palms of an individual who can not reliably keep away from impulsive selections. We let individuals who flip 18 purchase firearms. Why are the rental automobile corporations the one group to bear in mind this very important neurological reality? Is it as a result of they’ve one thing invaluable to guard? Do not all of us? –Jill Pulley, govt director of the Vanderbilt Institute of Scientific and Translational Analysis at Vanderbilt College Medical Heart

My want for 2023 is for international leaders to deal with the present training disaster and the affect it has on among the world’s most marginalized learners. This disaster has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier than the pandemic, as many as 33 million children with disabilities have been out of faculty, the bulk in lower-income nations. These youngsters, particularly ladies with disabilities, are much less prone to go to high school and extra prone to be illiterate than youngsters with out disabilities. It could be nice to see youngsters with disabilities included in mainstream training and in knowledge assortment. This requires each funding and coaching educators. All of this work needs to be accomplished with the enter of these with lived expertise of incapacity so their voices are heard. –Liesbeth Roolvink, deputy technical director for inclusive training on the worldwide growth group Sightsavers

Give shelter

My dream for human form is for everybody to have houses. The houses can be good. And the houses would have all the sources they want. –Francis, 1st grade

Housing is on the thoughts of 1 first grader at The Pals College of Atlanta.

The Pals College of Atlanta.

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The Pals College of Atlanta.

My want for 2023 is a endlessly residence (a protected place to remain for the remainder of their lives) for all of the pets on this planet, with out danger of abuse. –Susie Lipton, a pediatric infectious illness specialist who lives on a small farm in Maryland

My want is to place paperwork apart and take all these workplace buildings and parking garages that emptied out throughout the pandemic, all these malls which might be foundering, barely surviving or are deserted, all these high-rises with total flooring empty, all of the blighted empty heaps and long-abandoned buildings — and home so a lot of these which might be unhoused, all around the world. Present a spot in these buildings for social providers to assist the unhoused discover the providers they want. –Genevieve Foskett, former librarian, Wisconsin

Soup up the photo voltaic grid

My want is to have free electrical energy for all households. There’s great untapped photo voltaic potential internationally, sufficient to feed power into the grid and supply low-cost electrical energy to companies to offset the price of transmission and upkeep. Creating free electrical energy for electrical automobile charging stations would remove the largest hurdle to widespread adoption of electrical automobiles. –Rick Palmeri, retired pc man and full time dreamer, Connecticut

Make workdays safer and more healthy

I hope that companies can prioritize office well being and security. Each single day, 7,500 people die globally from unsafe and unhealthy working situations. Working with governments, universities and different nonprofits, we are able to change the narrative by saving lives that in any other case can be misplaced or grow to be non productive to society and the financial system. –Bernard L. Fontaine, Jr., managing companion of The Windsor Consulting Group, Monroe, N.J.

Dignity issues

My want for 2023 is for everybody to be handled with dignity, no matter age, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation or another identification. Everybody has the appropriate to be handled with dignity, and I try to create an surroundings the place that is the norm. I consider that making a extra equitable, peaceable and simply world begins with how we deal with each other. Dignity is integral to our sense of self-worth and self-respect. It’s also important for {our relationships} with others, permitting us to be seen and revered for who we’re. –Immy Mulekatete, communications fanatic with the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Workplace in Rwanda.

Gisele Grayson and Carmen Drahl are freelance editors. Due to Miriam Kshensky Arensberg and Celest Samas, 1st grade academics at The Pals College of Atlanta, and to everyone who submitted a want.