HEALTH
YOUNGSTERS RESOLVE TO ENSURE OPTIMISTIC WORLD AFTER PANDEMIC
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oungsters across the globe often stay optimistic that an inclusive and, resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is possible. They are assisting in developing solutions to ensure communities free from the pandemic stronger than before. The deadly Coronavirus may have taken the most serious physical toll on older people, but it’s the younger generations that have faced the burden of the pandemic worldwide. The WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the younger generations were less at risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19 but would be the most affected by the long-term consequences of the pandemic. It would shape the world they lived and worked in for decades to come, he added. The social distancing and stay-at-home policies have interrupted youth education, made it difficult to hold or find employment, and led to growth in mental health conditions. A large chunk of children are not progressing in school, with 101 million falling behind on reading proficiency in 2020, intimidating an educational gain of almost 20 years. In the same year, global adult employment reduced by 3.7 per cent, while youth employment refused by 8.7 per cent. The unemployment figures for young women are even bleaker, and they face additional, unique challenges, including increased vulnerability to domestic violence and child marriage. In spite of these problematic trends, youngsters have also been an energetic force at the forefront of growing creative solutions to an inclusive, sustainable pandemic recovery. Noticing these efforts, the WHO started working on putting together younger generations into its work and policies.
affect and matter to them. Members of the Council will meet several times a year, with their work culminating in a WHO Youth Engagement Strategy. She emphasized that the pandemic had shown them that young people were much resilient.
The Director-General’s Senior Adviser on Gender and Youth, Diah Saminarsih is leading this program. Since 2018, she has been answerable for exploring the way WHO can better serve young people, and how they, in turn, can contribute to the mission of the Organization. She says, “I would like the youngsters to have a role in every possible element that exists: advocacy, policymaking, research and science, sexual and reproductive health, gender — across every possible angle”. Saminarsih points out that youth initiatives are often narrowly focused on a homogeneous definition of the demographic or on single issues such as unemployment. She would like the approach of WHO to be more holistic and inclusive, positioning young people as equal partners to better enable a ‘transfer of wisdom’ within the Organization. During the pandemic, she and her team began putting this vision to the test by developing and launching the WHO Youth Council. Various departments of WHO have youth-focused plans, the Council serves as an umbrella in a view to house them all. It brings together young people from both health and nonhealth backgrounds to provide guidance to the Director-General on issues that
On the other hands, with the launch of the Youth Council, the WHO announced creation of Global Youth Mobilization (GYM), a step to invest in and replicate youth solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic. In partnership with the UN Foundation and the Big 6 Youth Organizations — which alone engage more than 250 million young people — and with support from the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, the movement convened a Global Youth Summit in April 2021 to reflect on the pandemic from a youth lens. Dr Tedros said, “Joining forces with the Big 6 and the UNF provides WHO and the world a unique opportunity to learn from hundreds of millions of young people and be guided by their sustainable solutions to help communities build back better from the pandemic”. The three-day event brought together young people as well as policymakers from over 150 countries to discuss their experiences and proposed solutions to multiple issues, among them disrupted formal and informal education, the glaring inequalities that the pandemic has exposed, physical and mental well-being, and how to enter a changing labor market. For Global Youth Mobilization board member Tharindra Arumapperuma, what made the conversations and solutions at the summit stand out was that they were specific to local contexts.
September 2021
DAWN 69
