| Date 12-Aug-2021 to 12-Aug-2021 |
Location Virtual |
Format PRIA@40 |
Youth are not the future, they are the present. Let us believe in #youthfordevelopment and see youth as partners for change. #mentorship #partnership #collaboration #advocacy #networking -- all are necessary for youth participation and #activecitizenship
Key takeaways of our symposium on Youth Participation and Active Citizenship
Over the past decade, youth engagement has gained greater attention in national and international policy-making. Given the pressures on youth employment and with the promise of potential demographic dividends, most attention has focused on education, training, and skilling of youth. Entrepreneurship, start-ups, and other economic opportunities have been promoted around the world.
Yet, youth have also been at the forefront of movements for equality, dignity, and justice (especially climate and gender) in many parts of the world. The pandemic has caused major disruptions in their lives. Shifting suddenly, and continuously, to online education, internship, work from home, etc. for the past 18 months has begun to cause widespread physical and mental stress. Nonetheless, the youth have joined and mobilized global efforts at providing CoVID-19 related relief, information, medicines, access to health care, vaccination, etc. in their communities and to vulnerable households.
As socially responsible education began to gain attention, national programmes began to include opportunities for youth participation in society while studying at school and college. The Indian government launched the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) initiative in 2016 to involve students to find solutions for the socio-economic development of poor rural communities. India’s ambitious New Education Policy 2020 includes learning ‘global citizenship’ to empower students to become aware of and understand global issues and become active promoters of more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure, and sustainable societies.
As official policy-making focused on youth participation to serve society, PRIA launched its Youth-n-Democracy (YnD) initiative on its 35th birthday in February 2017. PRIA’s focus is on promoting the learning of values and principles of democracy in everyday life and become active citizens – by supporting youth to learn about one’s own identity and attitudes towards dissimilar others, about valuing other’s knowledge and experiences, and learning to appreciate the diversity of perspectives, opinions, and actions. And, lastly, become willing to contribute to the democratic functioning of families, communities, and society throughout their adult lives.
Learning to become active citizens, therefore, is about acting in solidarity with fellow citizens and communities, offering mutual support with respect, and participating in amplifying voices and actions towards equality, dignity, justice, and sustainability. In the process, we discovered many other initiatives in India and beyond where youth are learning and practicing active citizenship in everyday life.
Recognizing significance of youth participation in actively engaging with and contributing to societal challenges, UNESCO promotes an initiative on Global Citizenship Education (GCED) of youth taking active roles to contribute to a more just, peaceful, tolerant, and sustainable world. Likewise, United Nations Volunteers (UNV) has invited youth to volunteer for ‘service to society’. The UNESCO Global Youth Community launched the “Y-Action” initiative in 2020 to raise awareness of and highlight the response of youth-led organizations globally to the COVID-19 crisis through a series of short videos. This global initiative is aimed to inspire, encourage and mobilize youth-led groups worldwide to contribute to the global fight against the COVID-19 by promoting experience sharing, peer learning, and collaborative actions.
In its fortieth year, PRIA is preparing to ‘re-tool’ for its future contributions, nationally and internationally, in the aftermath of the pandemic and its widespread effects. Over the next six months, we will be convening conversations with partners, associates, supporters, experts, investors and colleagues, drawn from civil society, government, business, media and academia, to share ideas and experiences that can help ‘re-imagine’ PRIA, its interventions and the world in the coming period. Read our concept note.
As part of these PRIA@40 conversations, PRIA convened a symposium in collaboration with UNESCO New Delhi Cluster Office and UNESCO Global Youth Community (GYC) on International Youth Day on August 12, 2021 to learn from others such strategies for learning active citizenship through youth participation that can be further encouraged.
The panelists' presentations focused on two key questions:
During the symposium, participants were asked two questions, and their responses to the questions are presented in the word clouds below.
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For more detailed webinar report: Click here
For webinar recording: Click here