India keeps empowering young people
Check out the latest progress Generation Unlimited is making in India by forming new partnerships and promoting challenges, dialogues, and platforms for youth.
August 25, 2020
In order to reach more young people and engage them as active changemakers of society, Generation Unlimited in India (YuWaah) has organized several activities and formed new alliances in recent months.
The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and UN agencies committed to supporting 10 million young people with opportunities for education, civic participation, skill building, and employment. During the partnership launch event - which reached over 100,000 young people - the Government of India expressed its commitment to working with YuWaah to listen to young people's opinions and ideas to face the country's challenges.
With the aim to engage over 80,000 National Cadet Corps volunteers, UNICEF Assam, and the NCC Directorate for the Northeastern Region joined forces to involve young people in planning initiatives on critical children's issues and provide them with opportunities to share their stories.
Punjab State Government committed to enabling opportunities for 8 million young people, through a partnership with YuWaah announced by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Punjab. The partnership started with a state-wide U-Report poll to understand youth challenges and aspirations. Subsequently, youth innovation challenges will take place, and an innovative mobile app called 'YuWaah Ninja' will be launched to engage young people in solving civic issues and learning 21st century skills.
On World Youth Skills Day, UNICEF India announced a partnership with SAP India to provide career counseling to young people in the country in order to improve their employability skills in a COVID-19 and post-pandemic world. Under this initiative, YuWaah is promoting digital education and occupational skillsets to the underserved young people of the country.
Youth egangement actions
YuWaah has also carried out several activities to keep engaging the youth. UNICEF and YuWaah, in collaboration with Atal Innovation Mission and a partner-agency, have been successfully running the two-month long YuWaah Youth Challenge to create solutions for some of the challenges faced by the society in the wake of COVID-19.
The YuWaah Youth Challenge has reached more than 9,000,000 young people (10-24 years) across the country and has received over 1000 submissions of youth-led innovations. Over 460,000 young people became U-reporters. Further, through an online engagement called YuvaSansad, five young people from across India engaged in a dialogue with five members of parliaments from their constituencies.
As part of the International Youth Day on 12th August, YuWaah organized a series of events over the month to celebrate active participation of young people. YuWaah in partnership with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, the UN75 initiative and other UN agencies celebrated the International Youth Day on 12th August through a vibrant panel discussion that brought together seven young activists and advocates undertaking grassroots work on issues ranging from social inclusion to entrepreneurship, which has been viewed over 175,000 times.
YuWaah also conducted an activity-based workshop on using art and spoken word poetry for mental well-being on August 15th, which generated over 1800 views and saw considerable engagement from live audiences. Taking forward the theme of Youth Engagement for Global Action, YuWaah organized an entrepreneur interaction session on 20th August to celebrate and promote social entrepreneurship among young people. Finally, to support young people through the pandemic, YuWaah organized a mental health session on the 21st August to help young people with simple coping strategies.
At the national level, YuWaah established the Young People's Action Team to enable deep, meaningful, and continuous engagement of young people across all levels of YuWaah’s decision making processes.
To support young people's career development, YuWaah has also established a career guidance portal in partnership with nine state governments. This portal already has over 15 million young people accessing it.
In collaboration with iDreamCareer, YuWaah launched a counseling helpline for young people. Students in need of support can access free personal counseling provided by qualified counselors and psychologists.
More information on YuWahh's Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/YuWaahIndia
