When the world is grappling with online communication during Global Pandemic young people across the globe are trying our best to find best ways to sustain in the new normal,Assam based ‘youth-led’ organization WAY (We Are Young Foundation) has successfully engaged with more than 14,000 young people and children on ground through its various youth centric programs to instill active citizenship.
On International Youth Day, this year WAY India had interactions and events jointly organized with many Youths from around the World. Emphasizing how the pandemic has also brought in a lot of opportunities for global youth to collaborate and work together for the good of the planet.
Speaking to News Sense, Assam based Founder of WAY Foundation, Indrajit Sinha said, “Space like these are of much needed in this global times and pandemic has brought in the world in more closer to eachother with most of the conversations happening over ditigal modes, either you talk to your collegues or neighbours, it is online these days, why don’t we leverage this opportunity to gather global voices of young people and increase youth participation in global affairs?”
The project started on International Youth Day on August 12, 2020 till August 15, participants from all around the world were able to voice out the social issues around them by submitting different forms of artwork such as, painting, poetry, video monologues, and articles.
“Raisona, Bangladesh addressed the stigma around mental health, Fiza another changemaker from Bangladesh shared her thoughts on giving importance to creativity during the pandemic, Ridaka created awareness about drug abuse among the youth of Bangladesh, and Auniva took her stand on domestic violence and abuse of women” says Marzaan Mirza, youth activist and country coordinator Bangladesh.
Sara Khaddam, country coordinator from Syria shared how the decade long war situation has brought in deep scares in the minds of young people in Syria and how mental health is an issue among young people which needs global attention right now.
Mr. Ermir, a youth worker and founder of a youth centric organization from Kosovo and the country coordinator from Kosovo hold a live instagram session and held discussion around “youth action in the global social development space”
Adding to it, Mr. Andrew, NGSU leader and country coordinator, Ukraine who is also an aspiring final year medical student laid emphasis to raise awareness on mental health and various aspects of it in the global level. “We are overwhelmed by the love and support we received from our friends from our own country and also from other countries” says Global Team Lead, Rekha Sarma.
Youths from Ghana, Syria, Nepal, Kosovo, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Canada, Tanzania, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Algeria, Ukraine were part of this Global Campaign along with the members from India. Post Global Meet 2020 agenda is to build a strong collective of like-minded young people and give platforms to a global platform to young people from across the world.
