The Youth Leadership Project brings together youths from disaster areas around the world for an intensive training that takes place in Tohoku, Japan. The youths learn and experience disaster prevention methods, Psychological First Aid and stress-management techniques; Tour the disaster area and meet with local leaders who have made a change, and work towards realizing their goals in planning and implementing disaster-recovery initiatives .
Many communities around the world face disasters, with long-term recovery highly dependent on the initiative and leadership of their youth. Think of it : young people are often technologically-savvy, well positioned in their community to take action, physically strong and mentally resilient; They are a crucial factor in the recovery of local communities.. But only limited support is given to youth in disaster areas; We wish to change this situation and enable youth to take action.
The Youth Leadership Project identifies youths committed to disaster-recover and provides them with a set of skills, knowledge, and tools to realize their goals. The alumni return to their communities and together with our continued support, initiate their own disaster-recovery projects for their local communities.
Hundreds of people have already been affected by the initiatives taken by the Youth Leadership Project alumni since the project was launched in 2015. In the aftermath of the Nepali earthquakes, for example, our alumni designed and implemented an emergency distribution of winter kits to children-at-risk in the rural areas of Nepal. It is though this ripple effect that the YLP aims to make a lasting impact in disaster-affected communities.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
