Yesterday marked International Youth Day, an annual United Nations designed awareness day recognising the important role that young women and men play in shaping the world we live in, and addressing challenges of today to build a better future. The 2019 theme, ‘Transforming Education’, provides an important focus on a critical lever to increase opportunities for young people in Australia and internationally.
At Sustineo, we are proud of our explicit recognition of the importance of youth in the way we design and implement our projects and as part of our commitment to corporate responsibility. At different scales, our contributions include the following.
Embedding youth as part of a socially inclusive approach to research, alongside gender and disability. As an important, but often times over looked, societal group, we purposefully seek to integrate the unique perspectives of youth demographics in our applied social research work.
Supporting the professional development of young people as part of our international project teams. We purposefully recruit young people within research teams, devoting additional effort and time to training, mentoring and professional development activities to ensure they are appropriately supported. In a recent Solomon Islands project, this included working with the UNDP and the Public Solicitor’s Office to recruit 12 recent law graduates from the University of South Pacific.
Supporting university students and young professionals build their understanding of career options and experience, particularly in reference to international and sustainable development. Since 2018, we have supported 37 early-career students and graduates through hosting student groups, internships and mentoring and conducted 14 lectures for under-graduate and post-graduate courses and other panels at Canberra-based universities.
We will continue to recognise, work with and support young people as part of fulfilling our organisational mission of making positive social and economic impact where we work.
#YouthDay #TransformingEducation #SDG4
Further information
If you would like to discuss our experience or work in this space further, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with Tom at tom.sloan@sustineo.com.au. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for more posts like this!