HCM CITY— UNICEF and partners are organising a new challenge calling on young innovators in HCM City and surrounding provinces to design solutions that will improve skills and training for young people, and empower them to take actions on issues that affect them.

The Youth Challenge is part of the global initiative called Generation Unlimited.

Generation Unlimited, which is a new, ambitious partnership – launched at a high-level event during the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly – aims at getting every young person into quality education, training or employment by 2030.

The first global action of the Generation Unlimited is the Youth Challenge taking place this year in 16 countries worldwide, including Việt Nam.

The challenge focuses on developing solutions for secondary-age education; skills for learning, employability and decent work; and empowerment, with a focus on girls.

In Việt Nam, the Youth Challenge calls for applications from young people to identify problems in their life and create impactful solutions for employability and empowerment with specific focus on girls.

The Challenge will be implemented by UNICEF in partnership with the Saigon Innovation Hub (SIHUB) under HCMC’s Department of Science and Technology.

“Young people know best the challenges they face and can therefore best create and innovate solutions that work for them and their peers”, said Marianne Oehlers, chief of programme partnerships, UNICEF Office in HCM City.

“We hope this challenge will inspire credible ideas from young people in Việt Nam to explore challenges to decent employment and break down barriers faced by their peers in the school-to-work transition,” Oehlers added.

UNICEF Việt Nam will support a design workshop for the Youth Challenge’s successful applicants in HCM City in December.

Following the workshops, the six most promising ideas will be selected and awarded with seed funding and mentoring to get the projects off the ground.

In spring, shortlisted projects from each country will be submitted to a global judging process to have a chance of further investment and be involved in a mentorship programme from Generation Unlimited partners to support them to scale up.

People who want to attend The Youth Challenge could log onto the webpage https://bit.ly/GenUnlimitedVN for more information on how to apply. — VNS