TED Circles
This week we had our first TED Circles event of the year. The topic we discussed was “How can we help young people build a better future?”. We watched a talk from Henrietta Fore, the executive director of UNICEF, who is spearheading a new global initiative, Generation Unlimited, which aims to ensure every young person is in school, training or employment by 2030.
“A plan to empower Generation Unlimited. There are 1.8 billion young people between the ages of 10 and 24 in the world, one of the largest cohorts in human history. Meeting their needs is a big challenge — but it’s also a big opportunity, says the executive director of UNICEF, Henrietta Fore. Among the challenges facing this generation is a lack of access to education and job opportunities, exposure to violence and, for young girls, the threats of discrimination, child marriage and early pregnancy. To begin addressing these issues, Fore is spearheading UNICEF’s new initiative, Generation Unlimited, which aims to ensure every young person is in school, learning, training or employment by 2030.
She talks about a program in Argentina that connects rural students in remote areas with secondary school teachers, both in-person and online; an initiative in South Africa called Techno Girls that gives young women from disadvantaged backgrounds job-shadowing opportunities in the STEM fields; and, in Bangladesh, training for tens of thousands of young people in trades like carpentry, motorcycle repair and mobile-phone servicing.
The next step? To take these ideas and scale them up, which is why UNICEF is casting a wide net — asking individuals, communities, governments, businesses, non-profits and beyond to find a way to help out. “A massive generation of young people is about to inherit our world,” Fore says, “and it’s our duty to leave a legacy of hope for them — but also with them.” —
Here were some of the ideas that were shared on what the most important skills young people need for now and the future:
