Kick-off Annual Global Learning Event
In November, the Empower Youth for Work team came together in Thailand for the first annual Global Learning Event. 37 participants including country teams, partner organizations and technical advisors attended the five-day occasion. The aim of the event was to provide an opportunity to identify paths for better, more collaborative and impactful programming.
Country teams and partners were able to share experiences on different partnerships formed in finding solutions with key stakeholders. Learning through innovation was made possible by;
E-Motive learning exchanges:
The teams from Pakistan and Bangladesh shared key learnings on their exchanges to Nepal and India. The learning groups visited examples of best practices by young women’s rural enterprises and community ownership of rural hubs.
Human-Centered Design:
Each team pitched best practice examples from pilots developed using Human Centred Design, a method for creative problem solving and innovation by involving the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process.
Research:
Throughout the week participants explored how to apply research findings in their work. Research undertaken and explored included the baseline study, research on youth influencing policy, and findings from the social norms diagnostic tool, a tool to identify social norms influencing women's inclusion and leadership.
Before coming here, it felt like we had separate country projects. Now it feels like one team. We have a diverse group, with different, experienced, and young people. This is a great combination for this project.
Shahzad, Pakistan
Which lens are you looking through?
Giant colourful sunglasses worn during the event symbolized the three cross cutting issues "gender, youth participation and climate change". These run like a red thread throughout the Empower Youth for Work programme. These proved a fun reminder to keep looking at local contexts through different lenses.
Through the eyes of participants
According to Toma Saha, Youth officer in the Bangladesh team, “ ...it became clear how essential it is to identify, create and support companies that offer ‘green jobs’ and establish safe, climate friendly products and technologies.” Read more in Toma's blog. Abdurehman Eid, partner in the Ethiopian team commented “We realized our initial assumption that we would find jobs nearby after skills training, has been refuted. As such, we need to support enterprises that have potential to create jobs.” Abdurehman blogged on Business Development Services. Bushra Ahmad, Youth officer in Pakistan looks through the "gender" lens in her blog.
Read more about the Global Learning Event in the Communiqué.