By Gabriela Jaeger | Programmes Director
The last six months have been a roller coaster ride of highs and lows globally, navigating unforeseen challenges and being forced to innovate and think differently about what is possible. We have been working to increase our online programming over the last three years in order to be able to reach more young people without the barrier of geography and we are very thankful that we were still able to support young people around the world through these programmes over the last few months.
Here are some of our latest updates on our mission to support young people to create positive change in their communities.
Virtual Youth Summit
Like many organisations around the world, we had disruptions to our normal operations in order to ensure that people remain safe and we work together to slow the spread of COVID-19. For us that meant pausing plans for our Global Youth Summit.
We were challenged to think ‘inside the box’ so to speak and we decided to host our first ever Virtual Youth Summit. The #VYS2020 took place online from 24-28 April with over 1,400 participants joining in from over 125 countries. The theme centred around the role of youth in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and participants attended panel discussions with over 40 expert guests as well as facilitated networking sessions with other like-minded changemakers who share their passion to make a difference.
As this was our first VYS we were unsure what to expect (based on the feedback, it will definitely not be the last!). We were blown away by what unfolded and, full disclosure, got a little teary eyed at times reading some of the feedback and interactions between the participants.
In the last networking session, the participants started planning next actions they can take and discussing how they can collaborate to create positive change. This is exactly what we had hoped for when we created the VYS and it made the perfect time to launch our latest course on Changemakers School – Project Management for Changemakers!
Project Management for Changemakers
The product of months of work and collaboration behind the scenes, we are incredibly proud to have launched our latest course on Changemakers School. This is an online course where young people can learn how to create, execute and scale effective solutions to problems in their community, then apply for funding to make it happen.
There are over 25 lessons on all aspects of creating, running and monitoring a community action project given by experienced young changemakers from over 15 countries and 6 continents. Each lesson also has a set of curated complementary materials as well as simple and practical lesson challenges. When enrolling in the course, participants also join a global community of like-minded people and are able to join regular networking sessions as well as monthly virtual office hours with the course teachers. Upon completion of the course, anyone under the age of 30 automatically becomes eligible to apply for grant funding from Global Changemakers!
GCMx
Another programme that was under threat due to COVID-19 was our GCMx programme, a series of independently organised training events in communities. We had just started granting licenses to passionate people around the world to host these events when the pandemic broke out. Forced to think inside the box once again in order to ensure that we slow the spread of COVID-19 and work within local and international safety regulations, we adapted the programme into an online format to be able to connect, engage with and develop the skills of young changemakers during this lockdown period.
We hosted two successful GCMx events in The Philippines over the last month and will be hosting GCMxUAE in July.
Mentorship Programme
Created with the purpose to help young people develop themselves in order to become effective leaders and create meaningful change in their communities, we have just finished the third cycle of our Mentorship Programme. This year we incorporated additional tools and chapters to create even more value for programme participants - including mentoring participants in the creation and execution of their own community action project – and the feedback has been very positive.
An exciting update to the programme is that, from the next cycle, participants will be able to complete the programme in Spanish, including the application process, sessions and programme materials!
Blog
We launched our blog, ‘We Are Global Changemakers’, earlier in the year to provide a space where young people can contribute to the discussion around sustainable development and celebrate the role they play in this process.
To celebrate the launch of the blog, we hosted an essay competition and were blown away by the submissions! We received 338 submissions from 78 countries. We selected 3 winners, 5 runners up and 39 honourable mentions which you can enjoy at the link below.
Thank you very much for supporting us on this journey create positive change in their communities around the world.
Links:
By Courtney Gehle | Communications Manager
By Courtney Gehle | Communications Manager
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