Name of supporting organization: British Council
Program Location: Chattogram City and Sitakund
Total Coverage Leaders: 500 Youth Leaders under 20 Batches (Chattogram City-15 Batches and Sitakund-5 Batches)
Project Duration: 01 April 2021 TO 31 October 2022
Introduction:
The youth community makes up half of the world’s population. Around one third of the population of Bangladesh, namely 47.6 million people is youth. Youth are the confident and creative force in a society. They have passion and vision. Proper guidance and direction can bring them in the forefront of national development. Idea of national development is just myth without active and meaningful participation of youth. Since 1985, YPSA is committed towards leadership development and empowerment of youth. YPSA believes that Youth needs proper guidance and motivation so that they can guide themselves now and the nations in the future. YPSA has directly contributing twelve goals of SDG entire seventeen goals. YPSA believes that the countries are to succeed in achieving the SDGs, leaving no one behind along the way, public and private must seek out an active substantive engagement of young women and men from diverse background in national level planning, implementation and monitoring. The overall success of the SDGs depends on youth engagement. In that context, YPSA became partner of the Leadership for Advancing Development in Bangladesh (LEAD Bangladesh) project supported by British Council. delivering the trainings on youth leadership and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 13 theme-based modules, mentor them to develop SAPs and provide necessary support to the youth to address the community needs, coordinate with diaspora community for mentoring the young people in Bangladesh, select young people along with British Council who will receive small grant, coordinating the process of selecting young people who will receive mentorship from diaspora community, select and coordinate the symposium. YPSA is now executing the programme on Chattogram City Corporation and Sitakunda Upazila which is Southeastern part of Bangladesh and geographically more vulnerable due to climate change. YPSA believes that by the implementation of this programme the young generation will be responsive on climate change and safeguard on against of rights violation.
Project Overview:
(i) Project Title: Leadership for Advancing Development in Bangladesh (LEAD Bangladesh)
(ii) Goal: Young people in Bangladesh are empowered and skilled as leader in their communities to identify innovative, sustainable solutions to local and global challenges. They will possess the confidence and know-how to engage with local and national stakeholder to continue to solve those challenges.
(iii) Target Group: Young people (aged mostly 18 – 25) in communities across Bangladesh, and Bangladeshi diaspora community leaders
(iv) Main interventions: The primary intervention is a programme for 500 young people across Chittagong city and Sitakunda to enhance leadership skills, through identifying key challenges and collaborating with leaders from the Bangladeshi diaspora community in the U.K.As part of the programme, the participants will aim to affect change in their communities through Social Action Projects (SAPs) in three key areas of Bangladesh’s development, linked to SDGs. They are as follows:
- Social entrepreneurship – SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
- Climate Change – SDG: 13 Climate Action( YPSA)
- Civic engagement and democratic inclusion – SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.
Project Location
| Sl | Location of Training | Training Batch | Remarks |
| 1 | Chittagong City | 15 | Cascading Training |
| 2 | Sitakund | 5 | Cascading Training |
Activity Plan:
- Conduct a baseline survey
- Review and revise existing training modules (1training modules developed on youth leadership and critical thinking, and 3 thematic modules on the three SDG-focused areas)
- Organizing two training of trainers (ToT) sessions
- Hold training programs for young people on leadership and SDG
- 1 Online Platform (Commonwealth 100) operational
- Ensure that all the young people have successfully completed the online courses using the online learning platform.
- Community follow up meetings
- Support the Bangladeshi young people connecting with the UK diaspora community participants, keep a record of the agreed meeting minutes, and will support them in implementing the agreed activities.
- Assist young people to design and plan their community projects to engage wider communities in local governance
- Monitor progress, evaluate community projects
- Award small grants to top projects for further support
- SAPs engage with local government and sectoral experts and generate dialogue
- International Youth Day Celebration
- Organizing 2 Joint visioning workshops
- Organize a Leadership Symposium
- Conduct end line survey of the project