Photo = PLEDIS ENTERTAINMENT

 

[Hanteo News = Reporter KANG SUYOUNG] The two years SEVENTEEN has built together with UNESCO will come to fruition in Paris.

 

SEVENTEEN member JOSHUA will take the podium at the 'UNESCO x SEVENTEEN: Celebrating Youth, Creativity and Well-Being Together' ceremony, which will be held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, on the 25th. As a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Youth, he will represent the team and deliver a message to young people around the world. UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany will also attend, and the event will be livestreamed on UNESCO’s official YouTube channel.

 

This is not JOSHUA’s first speech. The relationship between SEVENTEEN and UNESCO dates back to November 2023. At the time, SEVENTEEN became the first K-POP artist to be invited to the 13th UNESCO Youth Forum held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, where the group gave a speech and performance. The following year, SEVENTEEN was appointed as UNESCO’s first Goodwill Ambassador for Youth and donated 1 million dollars to establish the Global Youth Grant Scheme. The fund was used to support 100 project teams in areas such as strengthening young people’s confidence and resilience through music, art, and sports, developing creative youth communities, and improving youth mental health. In August 2025, to mark International Youth Day, the group additionally donated 250,000 dollars in proceeds from a charity auction held in collaboration with fashion brand sacai and digital commerce platform JOOPITER. This fund will be used to provide deeper support for 10 teams that achieved outstanding results among the 100 teams. This ceremony will also serve as a place to confirm those results.

 

As SEVENTEEN said through its agency, “Because we have grown by expressing the many colorful moments of youth through music that contains our honest experiences and emotions from debut until now, the meaning of International Youth Day feels even more special to us,” the keyword of youth is not separate from the group’s music. It is no coincidence that SEVENTEEN, which debuted as a large 13-member group and has captured each member’s growth narrative in its music, became connected to a program that supports the growth of young people around the world. It is the result of messages built within music expanding into a structure outside music.

 

What stands out in this flow is the way the relationship has been built. There are various ways K-POP idols connect with social issues. They create points of contact with society in their own ways, such as being appointed as ambassadors, making donations, and participating in campaigns. In SEVENTEEN’s case, what is notable is that the relationship has continued for more than two years and has developed into a structure. It began with the group’s participation in the forum in 2023 and continued through its appointment as Goodwill Ambassador, the creation of a fund, an additional donation, and deeper support for outstanding teams. The structure in which the Global Youth Grant Scheme supports 100 teams and then selects 10 of them for deeper support is a continuous activity that would be difficult to maintain without SEVENTEEN’s ongoing participation.

 

In the K-POP scene, the phrase “social influence” is often used. For more than two years, SEVENTEEN has been showing what form that influence can actually take. The scene of JOSHUA standing at the podium at UNESCO Headquarters on the 25th is one moment in that long journey.

 

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