COVID-19 Solidarity Fund
Founded in December 2020 by the world’s largest youth organizations, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Foundation as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Global Youth Mobilization aimed to address the negative impact of the pandemic on young people and support them to build back better.
What We Did
Engaged more than 250 million young people.
Built on a network of young people engaged through the Big Six youth organisations and other partners, the mobilization deploys four strategies to address the needs of young people:
1. Grassroots activation for local solutions:
an open call to all young people to submit their solutions to the health and societal COVID-19 challenges. More than 2 million EUR was made available through small funding opportunities for young people and youth-led organisations and an accelerator programme to scale up the most effective ideas.
2. Driving national change:
activation of national networks of the Big Six in response to the impact of COVID-19 on young people and their local community
3. Global Youth Summit:
a series of global, regional and national events designed to advocate for young people’s needs and inspire and support young people to take an active part in pandemic recovery within their communities and beyond.
4. Championing young people:
contributed to the personal and professional development of young people where formal and non-formal education channels have been disrupted.
Areas of Focus
The COVID-19 Pandemic has highlighted several focus areas that needed to be addressed, as the impact of the pandemic and its disruptions called for urgent action on nine key policy recommendations.
We know that today’s generation of young people will be disproportionately inevitably affected by the long-lasting consequences of the pandemic.
Global Youth Mobilization provided support to young people to respond to these challenges and help to ensure their experience, creativity and passion inform policies, and decisions affecting their lives and make a meaningful difference in their communities.
Education disruption
Impact on mental health
COVID-19 health effects and lack of healthcare
Economic inequalities and lost employment
Grief and loneliness
Domestic and gender-based violence
Gender inequality and family planning support
Negative stigma of young people
Unstoppable Together
Launched on 27 March 2023, the Global Youth Mobilization (GYM) final impact report “Unstoppable Together: Celebrating 2 Years of Youth-led Global Action, ” highlights the reach and impact of the Big Six partnership and investment in youth-led solutions over the last two years.
Funded by the World Health Organization and United Nations Foundation, through the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, the GYM directly invested $5 million to support youth-led solutions across more than 125 countries.
Contact us
For further information about the Global Youth Mobilization, please contact:
info@globalyouthmobilization.org