Highlighted Session: Creating opportunity from chaos: reimagining gender equality, education and community through youth leadership

Group Submission Type: Highlighted Paper Session

Proposal

The far-reaching effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are well-documented: the number of people living in extreme poverty is expected to increase by 71 million (World Bank), up to 20 million more adolescent girls are projected to drop out of school (Malala Fund), and reports of gender-based violence are up by over 30% around the world (UN Women).

As every organization strives to determine the best path forward for maintaining and supporting girls' education, life skills and livelihoods, this panel discussion will focus on four young women and men representing Asante Africa Foundation, FHI 360, USAID, and Women’s Global Education Project, who are working “on the ground” to take action and create community change, catalyzed by the pandemic. The four panelists live in Kenya, Senegal, Tunisia and Zambia, and will each contribute lessons and guidance to make education, equality, and leadership a reality they can thrive in.
While numerous panels to date have analyzed the challenges girls - and especially adolescent girls - face, this panel offers an interactive dialogue with young women and men living the challenges and rising in spite of them. They will showcase their leadership, their innovations, and their actions for creating change. Panel attendees will learn from these young leaders what it takes to respond to a crisis, what creative solutions they have devised and how they are addressing issues of equity in changing social contexts. The panel will point to a way forward by looking at what role each of us can play to sustain youth empowerment and leadership.
The panel discussion will follow a traditional format, where each panelist will be able to describe their program intervention through a series of questions and predetermined talking points to ensure each presenter’s findings are clear and coherent. The panel will be chaired by Yolande Miller-Grandvaux, Senior Global Education Strategy Advisor at FHI 360 and former Senior Education Advisor at USAID Office of Education.

Below is a sampling of topics that will be covered during the panel:
Reimagining learning during the COVID era
Reimagining gender-responsive youth development
Taking risks; learning to fail and rebound
What can the international development community learn from these youth’s resilience?

Sub Unit

• Committee: Gender & Education

Chair

• Yolande Miller-Grandvaux, FHI 360

Individual Presentations

• Supporting girls’ education and resilience to COVID-19 through youth-led solutions - Casimir Coly, Women's Global Education Project

• Strengthening resilience for adolescent girls’ post pandemic through a focus on health assets and saving skills - Simon Kinyanjui, Asante Africa Foundation