Regional Youth Peace Lab 2021

Deadline: 9 April 2021
Open to: young people (18-30) from the Western Balkans
Benefits: prizes for the first 3 teams

Description

Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO), United Nation Peacebuilding Fund (PBF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA) in cooperation with Mozaik Foundation (Mozaik), Beyond42, and Mašta are organizing Regional Youth Peace Lab (RYPL) 2021 – a mentored process where teams of youth advocates compete in defining and developing concrete, actionable policy solutions. RYPL aims to position and engage youth as forward-thinking and innovative policymakers that can make significant contributions to peacebuilding initiatives in the Western Balkan region.

Eligibility

You are a passionate student, youth activist or young professional that wants to contribute to peacebuilding policy in the region. Ideally, you already have some policymaking or advocacy experience. This could include advocacy for and with marginalised or vulnerable young people. You have an understanding and interest in one of the 3 challenges: education, youth mobility, and peace and legacy of the past. You are eager to work with like-minded individuals from different backgrounds to tackle challenges that affect the WB6 region. Apply if you are looking for ways to further improve your skills by working with experts in the field.

Eligibility criteria:

Must be a young person (18 – 30 years);
The primary address of residence must be in one of the Western Balkan 6, or a citizen residing outside the region;
Background in any of social sciences, policymaking, advocacy, civil society activism, or peacebuilding is preferred;
Must be able to commit to 12 days of collaboration with their team on their policy proposal (each team defines their own pace in the 12 days from the start to the end of the competition);
Basic conversational knowledge of the English language;
Must have access to a reliable internet connection and a personal computer as the competition will be online-based;
Young people belonging to groups of vulnerable or marginalised youth are given a preference.

Benefits

Teams that authored the top 3 policies for each of the 3 challenges will get valuable awards:

1st Place per challenge – all team member get Amazon Kindle + $150 gift card
2nd Place per challenge – all team member get $100 gift card
3rd Place per challenge – all team member get $50 gift card

Aside from that, the best policies will be published in the WB6 Youth Policy Book and the Guide for Innovative Policy Making. The guide will open-source the whole competition format, allowing anyone to implement it as a means of achieving higher youth participation in policymaking.