Letter from Tim Pilkington: Happy New Year

Happy New Year.

At the start of a new year we often think about what the coming 12 months will bring - the plans we have, the opportunities there will be and the challenges we will overcome.

[I am certainly thinking about all of these as I start my journey as World Vision UK's interim Chief Executive].

This is a unique year. 2015 is the year that the Millennium Development Goals 'run out' and the world will come together in September to agree what replaces these. Only nine months from now, world leaders will gather in New York to agree the [technical-sounding] 'Sustainable Development Goals' which will set the course for our people and our planet for the next fifteen years.

At World Vision we believe the opportunity cannot be missed to put the children we serve at the heart of these goals. We work to support and enable the most vulnerable children, living in the toughest places on earth. And we will stop at nothing to put them front-and-centre over the course of the year. 

The prize this year is to set a course to end poverty and fight inequalities, to ensure healthy children and families, to create safe and peaceful societies - so that any child, wherever they are in the  world  can survive and thrive.

This is an inspiring mission. We go into this year with a sense of optimism about what can be achieved. But it is a daunting challenge. We cannot do it on our own. 

That is why we have joined together with hundreds of organisations around the world to form Action/2015. This brings our collective voices together so people know this is happening and why it is so important. And to ensure that decision-makers know we will be actively involved - to encourage, challenge and hold them to account.      

For World Vision, we are committed to raising our voice for children, and their rights. We will promote peaceful societies, encourage the world to focus on tackling violence against women and girls, and to end the scourge of child marriage and child labour. We will fight for children's voices to be heard and included on the decisions which impact them. We will speak up for the most vulnerable  whose voices are too often unheard.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, speaks of 'a future free from poverty and built on human rights, equality and sustainability. This is our duty and it must be the legacy we strive to leave for our children'. 

Amen to that.