Building Youth Partnership Opportunities to

Advance UN Sustainable Development Goals for Education,

Peace & Innovation | May 23 - 24 2019 | Bangkok, Thailand

ProjectReport Neringa Tumenaite | Swati Verma | Isabelle Eberz

Erasmus+ Global Partnerships

The world is now home to more than 1.8 billion young

people. Yet more often than not, these expected key

stakeholders of today's global challenges are pushed to the

periphery in key policy-making areas of education, peace,

sustainability, and global citizenship. ERASMUS + Global

Partnerships (EGP) aims at building youth partnership

opportunities to advance the UN Sustainable Development

Goals, focussing on Education, Peace and Innovation.

The Erasmus+ programme continues to

increase its global outlook with programmes that focus on

Capacity Building and International mobility programmes.

ERASMUS + Global Partnerships embraces the role of

partnerships and open innovations within youth and youth-

focused organisations to advance and accelerate SDGs,

highlighting SDG 17; Partnership for the Goals and building a

bridge with Europe’s most known Youth Engagement

initiative.

Webinars & Bangkok Symposium

In an effort to increase digital participation and maximise on

delivered trainings - two webinars were hosted on 17h and

18th May on the topic of design thinking and finding the right

financing strategy for new innovations in SDGSs.

Over two days in the heart of Bangkok, the symposium was

hosted in the sprawling C-ASEAN tower on 23rd and 24th of

May, 2019. The Symposium brought together ERASMUS+

alumni, youth organisations, start-ups, and researchers to

facilitate young people in building coalitions, exchanging

perspectives in a cross and inter-disciplinary setting, and

developing sustainable grassroots solutions for their

communities. To summarise, the specific objectives of the

project were namely:

• Support capacity building and youth coalitions through

knowledge transfer between Asia and the European Union

in inter and cross-disciplinary fields;

• Increase access to information regarding opportunities

offered by ERASMUS+ for universities, researches, and

youth NGOs;

• Facilitate interactive group for youth actors from Asia and

the European Union to engage in dialogue and share ideas

and practices from their grass-root experiences, break

geographical barriers and differences between disciplines

to build a global community of active stakeholders and

partnerships in SDGs;

• Prepare a list of recommendations targeting international

and national donors on how to enhance support for youth

and youth-focused organisations in order to strengthen

their work towards the SDGs.

Day 1 | May 23 2019

Type to enter a caption.

Type to enter a caption.

Type to enter a caption.

Attended by  60 participants from over 20 countries across

Europe and Asia, the first day of the symposium started on a

high note with the backdrop of building partnerships. The

opening speeches were delivered by Jenni Lundmark from

the the European Union Delegation to Thailand and the

OCEANS Network President. Soon after a fun energiser, the

group was led into an interactive session by Edgard Gouveia

Júnior who trained them in understanding the role

Cooperative Games in accelerating social change and

building strength and partnerships within team players.

Enthralled by his innovative games and energy, the group

broke for a round table discussion on the topic of “how to

empower youth to pursue effective and innovative ideas for

SDGs?”. The presentations within this session were led by

Angga D. Martha, Former UN Youth Adviser on SDGS &

CIVICUS Youth Action Team and Wilson Villones, Affiliated

Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the

Pacific. Together, they addressed the status-quo on the

international policy frameworks for youth engagement in

policy and decision-making and youth’s active citizenship

and participation in key areas of SDGs. Following this, the

groups were then led into a fishbowl discussion led by Dr.

Lasse Schuldt of Thammasat University and Arthit

Suriyawongkul of the Thai Netizen network for a discussion

on youth tackling fake news and using social media to

galvanise human rights movements.

The final session of  the day was marked by signing

participants to their respective breakout sessions of

Workshop A: SDG 4 and 16 (Quality Education and Peace

Justice and Strong Institutions) led by Eliza Popper and

Wilson Villones, Workshop B: SDG 13 (Climate Change) led

by Angga D. Martha and Workshop C: SDG 8 and 10

(Decent)Work and Economic Growth  Reduced Inequalities)

led by Proma Parmita and Rahmayana Fitri.

Collaboration is Key!

Day 1 | May 23 2019

Day 1 | May 23 2019

Following the opening day, the group reassembled on Day 2

for an exciting day spent pitching nascent projects ideas

within their respective breakout session. Led by Wim

Gabriels of the Erasmus Student Network and Okka Phyo

Maung of Myanmar’s first recycle-tech company Recyglo, the

session was earmarked with highly charged group

discussions, brainstorming and a final presentation. These

presentations were recorded as snippets on a poster unique

to every project. Graphic facilitations by Agne Rapalaite from

Visual Mind were key in visualising the ideas and their

prospective results.

One of the project ideas developed by the participants, Asia

Pacific Youth Exchange – Vietnam (APYE Vietnam)

aimed to deliver a two-week training program focusing on

SDGs and impact entrepreneurship in Vietnam. This group

envisioned to execute this by organising leadership

development trainings, local immersion of the chosen

delegates, and a fellowship period wherein the delegates are

given time to execute their ideas within their targeted

communities. The envisioned project has a strong focus on

generating regional partnerships by building a strong

network of international and local youth in Vietnam.

Another project arising from the discussions of the Day 2

was QEEI:Quality Education through Effective

Implementation. Centred in India, the project seeks to

develop tools and guidelines for effective implementation of

universal education. It aims to do so by building capacity for

institutionalised monitoring and evaluation within Indian

bureaucracy by targeting 8-10 civil servants engaged in

education policy implementation. With a project timeline of

Opening Ideas & Innovation!

Day 2 | May 24 2019

Day 2 | May 24 2019

three years QEEI seeks to train Indian bureaucrats into

bringing new policies on formal and informal education by

building capacity for monitoring and evaluation of such

policies.

As illustrated from multiple posters presented within this

session, nearly all projects had a strong component of

primary and higher education - whether it was E.C.H.O

(Education Creates Hopes and Opportunities) which

aims to create fun and hands-on leadership classes for street

children in Vietnam or U.K! (Utilising Knowledge!)

which aims to connect more and more freshman graduates

to inter-disciplinary career opportunities they may not be

able to foresee at the first go.

We believe the above to be not only a strong indicator of the

SDG interests of the youth within Erasmus+ and South

Asian universities but also the scale of opportunities for the

European Commission and Erasmus+ in funding and

supporting for youth action in education particularly.

Day 2 | May 24 2019

We all know that conferences tend to favour big cities and

bigger cosmopolitan cultures. However, in the spirit of

building partnerships not only within the invited experts -

but to take the learnings outside - remote participants were

invited to join two days worth of webinars as a preparatory

activity before the actual event. These interactive webinars

were then broadcasted on topics of Innovating through

Design Thinking and Financing your SDG Innovation

on May 17 and 18 respectively. Both the webinars focused on

something pivotal which every nascent idea or organisation

may face when it come to seeing their ideas to success -

building partnerships. Under the guidance of invited experts,

participants were encouraged to exchange ideas, develop

potential partnerships, and renew your commitment towards

you next big idea for SDGs!

The first webinar was spearheaded by Wim Gabriels, who

spoke of the preparatory stages of an actual idea hub -

tackling different ideation methods used within Erasmus

projects themselves. The second presenter was Ro

Fernandez, CEO and Founder of Nova (novatools.org) - an

online platform for collaboration through design thinking.

Introducing the participants of the principles of design

thinking: one, that it is simply not enough to create new

sustainable products and services in isolation and two, there

is a need to design new ways of talking about ideas and

exploring the future in a way that allows it to be embraced by

the people it claims to serve.

Ro, took the discussion forward by inviting the participants

to her own platform and guided them through design-

thinking stimulated challenges. The participants were then

allocated to different region specific case studies and were

IncreasingDigitalParticipation!

Webinars | May 17-18

tasked to utilise the platform to collaborate with each other

by providing critique, observations and insights from their

individual objectivities and perspective . To illustrate,

consider this project on Sri Lankan case study provided by

the SDG Fund (sdgfund.org). In a joint programme, World

Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture

Organisation of United Nations (FAO) collaborated with the

Government of Sri Lanka to address the causal factors of

poor nutrition at the household level. This involved

coordination between various sectors including: primary

health care, poverty alleviation programmes, education,

agriculture, and indigenous medicine. The programme,

inter-alia, promoted policy integration and coordination as

well as a greater awareness of nutrition in schools and

homes.

Utilising design thinking tools our participants brainstormed

remotely to come up with the following user-centric

observations. You can find out more about Novatools and the

challenges here at: https://bit.ly/2MV7xBX

Webinars | May 17-18

The second webinar threw light on an important logistical

components of the project management - financing. The

session was led by industry experts and exposed the remote

participants to Erasmus+ funding opportunities, different

funding mechanisms, develop grant writing skills, and to be

a part of virtual accelerator! Among the highlights of this

session was a presentation by European Union experts for

input - Adrian Veale, Lloyd Huitson, Marlene Bartes,

Genevieve Sauve, Elena Carloni and Marii Vaeljataga from

the European Commission.

The other presenters in this session were from Rural

Development Trust (Usha Rani and Nadia Llorens) handling

the subject of grant mechanisms and public private

partnerships in development projects and the accelerator

Surge Impact (Neha Dhingra) expanding on ways to

accelerate innovation in SDGs.

In total the webinars saw a total of 140 participants from all

over Europe and Asia. The attendees were also facilitated

through a personalised dashboard which enlisted the rules of

engagement while going through their virtual training

sessions.

Webinars | May 17-18

How to empower youth and youth-focused

organisations to accelerate SDGs? Erasmus+ Global

Partnerships brought together youth organisations,

start-ups, and researchers to facilitate young people in

building coalitions, exchanging perspectives in a cross

and inter-disciplinary setting, and developing

sustainable grassroots solutions for their communities.

Throughout the engagement process with local youth

leaders; project ideas and partnerships were shaped,

empowering many of the grassroots initiatives to take

shape across South East Asia.

SDG 17: Partnership for the goals

• Streamline the paperwork process for social

projects to ensure speedy and efficient

approval and implementation.

• Prioritise public dialogue between government,

private sector, and members of society (especially

including the youth sector), so that plans, policies,

and projects are tailor-made according to the needs

and wants of the target group.

Recommendations?

Recommendations

SDG 4: Quality Education

• Diminish the gap and misunderstanding between

government and private sector experts, including the

youth sector, to reach a consensus sooner.

• Strengthen tools and resource utilisation of civil

servants engaged in Ministries of HR and Education.

• Allow participatory governance on provision of

education, ensuring participation of the youth.

• Inclusion of funding types, particularly targeting

micro-sized projects, to encourage more creative and

innovative ideas from the youth sector, and pilot

projects to enhance quality education

• Create permanent incubators in strategic areas and

districts for youth-focused organisations to provide

young people regular support, materials, resources,

and mentorship. In particular, establishing a

dedicated framework or funding mechanism that

allows for idea incubators and pilot testing of creative

and innovative ideas should be encouraged.

• Developing recommendations to encourage

innovative project-based curricula and

evaluation methodologies, which provide for a

more dynamic and relevant learning

experience, and an effective assessment

process that supports assessment of learning

outcomes

• Merge resources and ideas with different

organisations to avoid duplicating efforts.

• Allow and create more open and flexible ways

for disadvantaged children and youth (street

children, etc) to re-integrate into the formal

education system.

• Encourage and provide capacity building activities

that develop university-industry collaboration across

all aspects of higher education activities including at

higher education institution and government policy

dialogue levels.

• Conduct lifelong learning opportunities to create

ways for inter-generational learning and exchange.  

Recommendations

Recommendations

SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities

• Integrate gender-neutral assessment into formal

educational institutions.

• Prioritise providing more social, political, and

economic opportunities to marginalised people.

• Advocate for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

(i.e. In the Philippines, for example, PWD cards are

now available throughout the country, wherein

people with disabilities are entitled to food, beverage,

and medicine discounts, as well as perks like free

movies every week.)

• Encourage research and pilot testing of universal

income in selected countries to encourage reducing

the income gap between urban and rural populations,

and develop innovative approaches to universal

affordable healthcare, quality education, and other

basic services.

SDG 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth

• Support the dissemination of the information

of different funding opportunities to the

various growing and youth-led organisations,

especially to those who do social

entrepreneurship projects to develop their

initiatives and expand their involvement in the

community.

• Establishing an integrated collaboration

between local education institutions and

private sectors to provide a platform of

"practical knowledge" to the students in order to

increase their practical skills in the field.

• Harmonising different youth and youth-organisation

working on similar areas for better contribution.

• Creating the space for youth and women to

participate in decision-making process, in order to

account for their needs and voices.

Recommendations

• Academic institutions, government, and key job

agencies should be included in roundtable discussions

on youth needs.

SDG 13: Climate Change

• Regular symposiums and partnership-building

activities should be supported to encourage regional

public dialogues on climate change crisis.

• Encourage active engagement from local

governments and municipalities to scale up the

climate-related projects.

• Increase financial support to engage communities

and create awareness through promotional activities

and capacity building workshops.

Recommendations

A few fun stats

OnlineReach!

Erasmus+ Global Partnerships 2019 has been selected as the cross-cutting project of the OCEANS Network (OCEANS) and supported by the Erasmus+ Student and Alumni Alliance (ESAA).

PROJECT TEAM

Co-founder & Head of Partnerships: Neringa Tumenaite, OCEANS Network & (Lithuania) Co-founder & Head of Digital: Swati Verma, Project Humanity & OCEANS Network (India) Project Manager: Isabelle Eberz, OCEANS Network (Germany) Communication Coordinator: Hans Kevin, OCEANS Network (Philippines) Branding & Outreach Advisor: Mohit Setya (India) Graphic Facilitator: Agne Rapalaite, OCEANS Network & Visualmind.lt (Lithuania) Videographer: Tautvydas Rasiulis, Videokultura (Lithuania) Logistical Support: Gustav-Stresemann-Institut (GSI), Mozaic

SYMPOSIUM CO-FACILITATORS & TRAINERS

Accelerator Okka Phyo Maung, Co-founder of Recyglo (Myanmar) Wim Gabriels, Erasmus Student Network (Belgium)

Cooperative Games Edgard Gouveia, Founder of LiveLab (Brazil)

SDGs 8 & 10 Proma Parmita, Director of MADE (Bangladesh)

Rahmayana Fitri, CIVICUS Goalkeeper (Indonesia)

SDG 4 Wilson Villones, CIVICUS Goalkeeper (Philippines) Eliza Popper, Co-founder of Konnekt Mentorprogram (Hungary)

SDG 10 Angga D. Martha, UN Adviser & Founder of Ngobrolin Indonesia (Indonesia)

Expert Panel on SDGs Valentin Dupouey - Moderator (France), Mikaela Luisa Carmen Teves, SPARK! (Philippines), Wilson Villones, CIVICUS Goalkeeper (Philippines), Angga D. Martha, UN Adviser & Founder of Ngobrolin Indonesia (Indonesia) Expert Panel of Media Freedom Isabelle Eberz - Moderator (Germany), Arthit Suriyawongkul, Thai Netizen Network (Thailand), Dr. Lasse Schuldt, Thammasat University - German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (Germany)

WEBINARS

Innovating through Design Thinking - Ro Fernandez, Founder of Novatools (Canada)

Virtual accelerator - Neha Dhingra, SurgeImpact (India)

Acknowledgements

Financing your SDG Innovation - Judit Alguero, Usha Rani & Nadia Llorens, Rural Development Trust-Vicente Ferrer Foundation (India)

Erasmus+ Opportunities & SDGS Special thank you to   the European Union experts for input - Adrian Veale, Lloyd Huitson, Marlene Bartes, Genevieve Sauve, Elena Carloni and Marii Vaeljataga from the European Commission.

REPORT EDITORIAL TEAM

Neringa Tumenaite (Lithuania), Swati Verma (India), Josselin Canevet (UK), Roger Chao (Singapore), Wim Gabriels (Belgium), Romy Peña Cruz (Philippines), Khang Nguyen (Vietnam), Mohit Setya (India)

The project has been made possible with the funding support form the Erasmus+ Student and Alumni Alliance (ESAA).

FOLLOW US ON:

www.erasmuspartnerships.org www.facebook.com/ErasmusGlobalPartnerships

https://www.instagram.com/erasmusglobalpartnerships/ https://twitter.com/erasmus_global https://www.youtube.com/channel/

UCeOdkaMiR9yonPluqZQA4wA

Acknowledgements

Project Partners