Cultivating youth social change leaders

CONCAUSA: Teenagers from 15 countries of America starred in a program that brought together various actions to achieve the SDG

In the context of the fourth version of Concausa 2030, young people, selected from a universe of 2,340 applicants, presented their initiatives at a ceremony at “the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean” ECLAC headquarters, after a previous week of training activities in education and global citizenship.

The fourth CONCAUSA International Youth Meeting was held between March 6 and 11, in Santiago, Chile. Sixteen social and environmental innovation projects were presented, led by adolescents between 14 and 17 years old. The program consisted on bringing together the participating teams for a week of activities related to strengthening teamwork, developing leadership, project management, and strengthening communications, among the main ones.

On the last day, in the Raúl Prebisch room of ECLAC, the adolescents had the opportunity to present their initiatives to the main decision-makers of the continent, including the ambassadors from member countries.

The initiative co-organized by ECLAC, UNICEF and América Solidaria Foundation, awards grants to projects aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This year there were 2,340 applicants from which 47 young people were selected. The applicants came from various countries in the Americas and the Caribbean: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay.

This year the teams presented projects with themes such as overcoming child poverty, ending gender violence, caring for the environment, reducing inequalities, efficient use of energy, recreational work with children in situation of extreme risk, among others.

CONCAUSA, which also has the collaboration of Caserta Foundation and the sponsorship of Pedro de Valdivia College Preparatory Academy, aims to promote the role and incidence of children and adolescents. In four years it has managed to mobilize more than 5,000 of them for causes aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the "1000 Actions for a Change" campaign. In addition, its youth representatives have participated in important international bodies, such as the 25th UN Conference on Climate Change (COP25); the World Youth Conference (COY-15), and the Youth Climate Action Summit in New York.

This year, the program reopened its doors to promote the empowerment of young people, their leadership skills and strengthen their proposals to improve the quality of life in their territories. But besides generating training, the initiative was marked by the speeches of adolescents before international and governmental authorities, in a ceremony at the headquarters of ECLAC.