June saw over 70 participants attend this two-hour event to celebrate this UK FCDO Dialogue Partner-funded project, in collaboration with SEAMEO, which aims to raise awareness and encourage young people across ASEAN to take action in tackling climate change by emphasising the importance of girls’ education.
The June Policy dialogue was the culmination of a series of activities including the creation of a secondary school resource pack and also an infographic poster competition for students aged 14-17.
During the event, Dr Ta Ngoc Tri, Deputy Director General, Primary Education Department, Ministry of Education and Training, one of the keynote speakers noted that, 'Education is one of the most important areas relating to solutions to cope with climate change. Humans are one of the most important factors contributing to climate change, making it even more severe. In particular, women and girls can have a significant influence and impact on how we respond to climate change by being more environmentally responsible. Raising young people’s awareness and getting them actively involved in such issues at an early age could contribute to such a shift'.
The event itself was also praised as being ‘brilliant from start to finish’ with an ‘inspirational mix of voices and presentation modes’ and most notably ‘the youth voice (rightly) stole the show’ as the final section featured a panel of young climate activists from Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, who shared their experience and perspectives on youth engagement in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Also, during the event the winning and highly recommended infographic posters from the more than 70 submitted from across ASEAN were shared. Indeed, almost 50 of the 70 submissions were from Vietnamese schools and students. You can see all the winning posters here.
The secondary school resource pack is now available to download in English and will soon be available in Vietnamese as well as seven other ASEAN languages.
Finally, if you would like to learn more about the project you can do so here. In addition, an end of project report which will encompass a summary of the key interventions, messages and recommendations from the event is being prepared and will be made available in the coming weeks.
This policy dialogue was not just a fitting finale to a great project but hopefully the beginning of more collaborative conversations on how to further support engagement of young people in critical SDG areas across ASEAN and possibly beyond.
If you would like to watch the recording of the policy dialogue event you can do so here.