By Courtney Gehle | Communications Manager
Seemingly out of nowhere, we find ourselves at the end of October and nearly at the end of 2020! After the initial period of adjustment to the new normal, we were able to continue our work supporting young leaders around the world, with only minor disruptions to our major programmes.
Here are some of our latest updates on our missions to support young people to create positive change in their communities around the world.
GCMx
After initially thinking we would need to pause our GCMx programme to ensure the safety of our changemakers, this has turned out to be one of our most vibrant and impactful programme over the last four months. Shifting from in-person to virtual independently organised GCMx events, we have been able to engage with and develop the skills of young changemakers from three continents.
Through partnering with passionate, mission aligned organisations around the world, we co-hosted GCMx events in Brunei, Kenya, Nepal, Palestine, two in the Philippines, Romania, Ukraine, two in the UAE and a regional event for West Africa, with one of the events taking place entirely in Arabic.
Grants Programme
We have awarded grants to 18 youth-led projects, with 3 projects directly addressing the impacts of COVID-19. Like most organisations and initiatives globally, many of our grant recipients had to adapt or postpone their projects to comply with health and safety measures. Projects whose activities would be impossible during a pandemic have been given the opportunity to apply again when it is safe to do so.
Changemakers School
Project Management for Changemakers
When we last spoke, we had just launched our new course Project Management for Changemakers. We have since enrolled students from over 55 countries and held a call for grant applications from students who had completed the course.
Through the generous support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), we were able to offer full scholarships to the course for students from Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. A dedicated pool of funds is also available to allocate grants to projects created by changemakers from these countries.
Facilitation Tools for Changemakers
With the massive shift to online engagement, virtual events and remote work we have seen this year, we have developed a curriculum on effective online engagement, team work and events which will be added to our Facilitation Course. These lessons cover online ice-breakers, platforms, best practices, tips and tools to support changemakers and teams in executing their work to create a positive change.
Young Changemakers Podcast
We released the second season of our podcast. This season saw young changemakers from Australia to Colombia to South Africa to South Sudan, working on issues as varied as Girls Education, Poverty Eradication, Peace Building, Water Access, Tech for Equality and more! We also welcomed our new host, Anastasia Pavlovic who joined William Reyes and George Chapman in sharing the stories of incredible young changemakers around the world to show you that - no matter who you are, how old you are, or where you come from - YOU have the power to make a difference.
To date, the podcast has been enjoyed by over 4,400 people in 106 countries.
Webinars and Tool Kits
Tool kits: Earlier this year we released a new tool kit on Design Thinking and we took advantage of the last months to translate it into 5 other languages, including Malaysian, Tagalog and Italian. Our toolkits are now available in 11 languages in total.
Webinars: Our webinar series has seen a surge in popularity during the last months, with over 1,500 more webinar views than this time last year. We have seen interesting and engaging content from changemakers and experts around the world on topics as varied as fundraising, how to approach sponsors and social media advocacy to adaptive leadership, resilience and emotional intelligence.
Looking ahead:
Virtual Youth Summit 2.0
Since hosting our inaugural Virtual Youth Summit for over 1,400 changemakers from 125 countries in April, it has become more urgent, more important, and more obvious than ever that YOUth need to take the lead to create the world we want to see.
Back by popular demand, we bring you the Virtual Youth Summit 2.0! VYS 2.0 will bring you the inspiring changemakers and networking opportunities synonymous with our VYS, as well as added workshops and sessions to develop your skills and create and action plan to be the change you wish to see.
Mentorship
As we head into the last week of Cycle 4 of our Mentorship Programme, we get ready to launch applications for Cycle 5, set to start in early 2021. This cycle saw X mentors and x mentees from X countries, with X mentees participating in the programme in Spanish.
Thank you so much for your constant support, without you this work would not be possible!
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