The Challenge
There are an estimated 1.8 billion young people around the world–the largest group in history. As the number of adolescents continues to grow, there is a need to keep pace with their emerging needs. When there is a concerted effort to foster co-creation and enabling environments, adolescents and youth themselves are able to drive priority-setting processes that affect them and to offer solutions to key challenges impacting their lives. This creates ownership and action, ensuring that the resulting policies and programs are more likely to be successful and targeted to needs.
There is an opportunity to leverage adolescents’ and youths’ valuable insights and experiences to shape and have ownership over their agenda.
About
The Second Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and The GovLab at New York University are developing an initiative that aims to provide innovative solutions driven by youth and adolescents themselves to the most pressing issues impacting their health and wellbeing as well as broader systems and society.
Through six exciting and robust regional-level participatory Youth Solutions Labs, we aim to engage adolescent and youth leaders to design solutions which will contribute to actionable recommendations of the Lancet Commission Report and the adolescent health and wellbeing agenda.
For more information on the Youth Solutions Labs, please see our Project Information Sheet.
This initiative has been approved by the HML Institutional Review Board (Review #755GLOB23).
Why participate in the Youth Solutions Labs?
As a member of the Youth Solutions Labs, you will have the opportunity to:
- Co-create solutions with other youth leaders to address priority issues impacting adolescent health and wellbeing
- Contribute to actionable recommendations showcased to an international audience and multiple stakeholders;
- Connect with a global cohort of young changemakers; and
- Receive an acknowledgement in the 2024 Lancet Commission Report on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing.
Apply to join the Youth Solutions Labs today!
Are you between the ages of 16 and 20? Would you like to make a difference in your community? Apply now to help set the global adolescent health and wellbeing agenda for 2024!
The application has 5 sections. It will ask about your interest in the Lab topics and personal details to help place you in a group with participants with similar interests.
The application should take no more than 15-minutes of your time. Please answer each question truthfully and to the best of your ability.
Applications are now closed.
Contact Us
If you have any questions, contact us via email at: youthsolutionslabs@thegovlab.org.
FAQs
The Youth Solutions Labs are a joint-project by the Second Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing, UNICEF and The GovLab.
The Lancet Commission brings together a group of global experts on health and wellbeing. UNICEF works around the world to save children’s lives, to defend their rights, and to help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence. The GovLab is an action-oriented research center that seeks to improve people’s lives by changing how we govern using new technologies.
We are looking for young changemakers between the ages of 16 to 20 years who are interested in making a difference in their community. If this sounds like you, apply now!
We plan to take no more than 3 hours of your time. The application should take no more than 15 minutes to complete. The Lab will run for 2 hours, and you will be asked to do a short pre-Lab task for 30 minutes. After the Lab, we will ask you to complete a 15-minute survey.
Though there is no compensation for participating in the Labs, with your consent, you will be recognized in the published 2024 Lancet Commission Report on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing as well as other publications and supporting media. You will also have the opportunity to further youth health and wellbeing, to gain experience in youth engagement, to join a global cohort of youth advocates, and to contribute to the evolving discourse around future goals for youth health and wellbeing.
You can apply through our application form. Please don’t spend more than 15 minutes on your responses.
You will not need your parent’s permission to join the Labs, however we do encourage you to talk to a responsible adult before deciding to participate in the Labs.
The Labs will focus on 5 aspects of youth health and wellbeing:
- Access to mental and emotional health care;
- Education and employment gaps;
- Sexual and reproductive health education;
- Meaningful youth civic engagement around climate change; and
- Healthy lifestyles and nutrition.
We will also talk about how you feel about the re-use of data, where data collected for one reason is used again for another reason.
The Labs will take place in the first week of October.