Golden Opportunity

The Forum for Community Solutions helps young people make their next moves.

Give NowOpportunity Youth—young people ages 15 to 29 who are out of school, unemployed, or working in informal jobs—were among the vulnerable populations most affected by the pandemic. But some youth leaders have transformed these challenges into opportunities. They composed Covid-19 volunteer surveys and responses to assess the needs of opportunity youth in the wake of the pandemic. The model designed by the Global Opportunity Youth Network, which is housed at the Forum for Community Solutions, provided the infrastructure to understand the impacts of the pandemic on opportunity youth and their communities. And it goes further: based on rapid assessment of community needs, the model provides tools to improve access to critical services.

The network is indeed global. In India, GOYN Pune partnered with Pune Municipal Corporation and 70 corporate and citizen volunteers to establish a Covid Helpline manned by 50 volunteers, which fielded 6,923 calls by opportunity youth and community members. The helpline coordinated with NGOs to support the distribution of food benefiting 7,000 families, and it became a source of information and emotional support for families in impoverished urban areas experiencing growing food shortages in lockdown.

In Colombia, GOYN Bogota produced a first-of-its-kind survey of 1,489 opportunity youth to understand the impacts of Covid on mental health, education, and employment. The study informed city-wide decision making regarding the impacts of Covid and needed supports to strengthen mental health and socio-emotional skills.

“I’m a big believer in young people being co-creators of solutions that work for them,” says Alfred Sigo, the CEO of the Pwani Youth Network, a network that brings together youth-led community-based organizations in Mombasa, Kenya. In March 2020, Sigo spearheaded a Covid awareness campaign targeting highly marginalized populations with education about how best to protect themselves from the pandemic. “The Global Opportunity Youth Network enables youth to push for changes they deem necessary—and not just here but nationwide and worldwide.”