New Delhi : The UNICEF, ACT EdTech Fund and YuWaah have collaborated to reaffirm their commitment to enhancing and promoting essential employability and life skills for young people in India. The grant will support the innovative WhatsApp chatbot tool deployed by UNICEF and YuWaah to build foundational life skills for young people across the country. The chatbot has more than 1.4 Lakh young people registered across all states/UTs within two months of its launch.
This investment is aligned with the ACT grant mandate to work towards social-emotional and work readiness skills. In addition to funding support, ACT EdTech Fund board members will offer mentoring support and employee volunteering provisions through their NGO partner network, enhance the #YoungWarriorNXT chatbot, and further promote and galvanize young people in the #YoungWarriorNXT movement through their networks.
#YoungWarriorNXT has been envisioned as an emergency response to the learning and skilling crisis compounded by COVID-19. In this year-long initiative, #YoungWarriorNXT aims to equip 5 million young people between the ages of 14 and 24 years with essential employability and life skills to enable them to pursue successful lives and careers. This will include five anchor life skills of Self-Awareness, Collaboration, Problem-Solving, Communication, Achievement Orientation, and Employability Skills that cover vocational training and job readiness skills. Recognising the impact of COVID-19 on young people, the initiative will also include initiatives that address mental health and emotional wellbeing.
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“One of the significant outcomes of COVID-19 is that young people are eager to make a difference and have demonstrated that with a little support, they are capable of leading the change. The partnership with ACT EdTech Fund will help us further expand our reach and scale to provide opportunities for young people, for them to be able to hone their employability and life skills and become leaders that can help themselves and build the India of tomorrow,” said Dr Kevin Frey, CEO, UNICEF Generation Unlimited.
UNICEF Representative in India, Dr Yasmin Ali Haque and Co-Chair, YuWaah, added, “We need to support young people to help them navigate through the uncertainties of the 21st century with essential employability and life skills such as collaboration, problem-solving, effective communication, decision making, and self-awareness. The UNICEF-YuWaah-ACT India partnership aims to empower young people, including the most marginalised, to make a difference in their own lives and their communities.”
Ashish Dhawan, Founder of Central Square Foundation, Chairman at Ashoka University, and Investment Committee Member at ACT EdTech Fund, added, “Through #YoungWarriorNXT, young people can learn essential life skills from the comfort of their homes while supplementing their regular academics. This partnership is going to offer a unique learning experience. It will address urgent challenges by exposing them to life skills, social innovation and career guidance as they transition to adulthood.’
As a young adult, at the cusp of entering the workforce, it is reassuring to know that we can get help and exposure to help us grow through varied experiences and acquire essential life skills. These help us hone our communications and digital skills and support our confidence to be better prepared ready for the job market. As a care leaver, access to skill development is especially important for me and my community to ensure a more secure future”, Sonal, Member – Young People’s Action Team at YuWaah.
The partnership will empower young adults across India to take charge of their learning and build skills in an enjoyable, self-learning and engaging format.
To be a part of #YoungWarriorNXT, young people can register by sending YWNXT to +91 9650414141 On WhatsApp. You can also join us by sending YWNXT to UNICEF U-Report India on Facebook Messenger and Telegram. Click Here for more details.
About YuWaah
YuWaah is a multi-stakeholder platform that aims to prepare young people to transition from education and learning to productive work and active citizenship. It was formed by UNICEF, together with public and private sector partners, UN Agencies, civil society organisations, foundations and young people as the Generation Unlimited (GenU) partnership in India. By 2030, in India, YuWaah aims to:
Build pathways to aspirational socio-economic opportunities for 100 million young people
Facilitate 200 million young people to gain relevant skills for productive lives and the future of work
Partner with 300 million young people as change-makers and create spaces for developing their leadership.
Launched in 2019 by Smt. Smriti Irani, Honourable Minister for Women and Children’s Development, YuWaah also received strong words of encouragement from the Honourable Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi in the form of a letter of support.
About ACT EdTech Fund
The ACT EdTech Fund aims to enable the bottom three quartiles, or bottom 75%, of India’s population (India 3) to learn at home by harnessing the power of EdTech. The fund intends to do this by seeding a handful of catalytic initiatives / organizations that can create impact at scale. The fund also aims to leverage the capability of the large EdTech players and bring an impact-first lens through forming partnerships and opening up distribution networks for the bottom 75% of India.
The fund is anchored by Ashish Dhawan (Ashoka, Central Square Foundation), Mohit Bhatnagar (Sequoia) and Mekin Maheshwari (Udhyam Learning Foundation).
About UNICEF
UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. More than 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, to build a better world for everyone.
UNICEF India relies on the support and donations from businesses and individuals to sustain and expand health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education and child protection programmes for all girls and boys in India. Support us today to help every child survive and thrive!
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