Promoting life-skills: ‘By the youth, for the youth’

Global campaign launched encouraging youth to tell governments the skills they need.

LAHORE:

A global campaign was launched on Monday, also Human Rights Day, aiming to use social media platforms to compile a message from the youth to governments.

Young people are being encouraged to upload a photograph of themselves holding up a placard describing their dream job and the skills they need to do those jobs. The same information can be sent via text message with their name, age and country.

The campaign is developing a multimedia-based online magazine from contributions from young people on the types of life skills they need. It was launched in connection with the release of the 2012 Education For All (EAF) Global Monitoring Report (GMR) titled ‘Putting Education to Work’ in October this year.

The campaign will run till January after which young people will be asked to convey their messages to their respective governments in the form of a ‘YOUthpaper’.

Challenges in Pakistan

“You see children deprived of education wandering the streets in Pakistan every day. But the problem is so large that you don’t know where to begin,” said Srosh Anwar, 28, a youth campaigner working for the EAF in Pakistan.

Anwar, a professional photographer, has been volunteering in the social development sector for the last five years. She said her encounters with children on the street often left her with a sense of helplessness.

“The number of school dropouts is large since children are forced to work to make ends meet,” she said. Anwar worked as editor of the EAF GMR 2012 Youth Summary with 11 other international editors. She was one of three people from Asia and the only Pakistani participating in the report’s compilation.

The Youth Summary aimed at compiling the success stories of young people around the globe. “The summary was meant as a report for the youth, compiled by the youth,” she said.

Anwar said more than 400 stories and ideas were collected from across the world, including almost 40 stories of young people from Pakistan. She said the work on the report started in September but the real campaign stared after the report was compiled by mid-October. Anwar conducted a workshop in November at the South Asian Youth Conference in Islamabad on the six goals under the Education for All initiative. She said several NGO workers had been working to promote the attainment of life-skills and education for all.



“Since social media is popular amongst young people, we are campaigning using the platform,” she said. Almost three months into volunteering for the project, Anwar said working for the campaign gives her direction. “We hope to raise our voice and act as a pressure group on the government and policy makers through the campaign,” she said.

“It is known that progress on the EFA’s six goal is slow despite 164 countries being signatories to it,” she said. Since 2010 implementation has stagnated, especially in Pakistan, due to the low allocation of resources, she said. “The government keeps decreasing the budget for education instead of increasing it - how is progress possible in such a situation?”

“There are lots of challenges in Pakistan’s context,” she said. “There is a lack of uniform educational standards in various private and public education sectors, poor education standards in the government sector and poor contribution to the actual learning of students.”

She said that the quality of education was as important as access to it. “It is high time we give the due attention to the issue and force governments to allocate more resources to the sector,” Anwar said.

Raise voice through an sms

“We offer young people a chance to rally with us to join a call for change through the campaign,” said Pauline Rose, the director of the EAF GMR, while corresponding with The Express Tribune. She said those who lack skills most are already the most disadvantaged, including girls living in poverty in rural areas. Rose said the sms campaign provided a platform to young people affected by a skills deficit. “The sms campaign enables those without access to a computer to be heard,” she said.

Having been launched on December 10, the campaign has so far received 200 photos or text messages from young people more than 60 countries. Rose said Pakistanis were some of the most active participants. She said they have tried to use youth organizations to communicate the findings of the EAF GMR to various governments. She said Senator Farah Aqil from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had discussed the issue with UNESCO officials in Pakistan. “We hope young voices will help us continue to lobby governments about the importance of investing in education and skills,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2012.