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Generation Unlimited Sierra Leone (GenU SL), an initiative spearheaded by the Ministry of Youth Affairs supported by DSTI and UNICEF, aims to develop young people’s educational and entrepreneurial portfolio, is set to launch a NATIONAL YOUTH INNOVATION CHALLENGE.
The Generation Unlimited National Youth Innovation Challenge calls on young innovators to design solutions to improve education/life skills and youth unemployment. The Youth Innovation Challenge is intentional in situating youth as leaders and drivers of our country’s development and provides for new structures and mechanisms to accelerate the empowerment of youth which make up over 40% of Sierra Leone’s population.
This innovative challenge directly aligns with the priorities and implementation of the revised National Youth Policy. The revised National Youth Policy (2020–2025) is rooted in the President’s vision and commitment to harness the potential of Sierra Leone’s youth population for national development.
“Government remains committed to putting youths at the center of its development agenda. A National Youth Challenge represents our hope for a prosperous future in Sierra Leone pioneered by youths” – Mohamed Orman Bangura, Minister of Youth Affairs.
The National Youth Innovation Challenge aims to inspire, provide opportunities, and support young people between the ages of 12 and 25, especially those disadvantaged by poverty and lack the resources to bring their ideas and creativity to life.
The National Youth Innovation Challenge welcomes young people between the ages of 12 and 25 regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, or disability to form teams and participate in the challenge.
Successful applicants will be invited to participate in Human-Centered design workshops. Following these workshops, the five most promising ideas will be selected and awarded a cash prize of 1,000 USD each as seed funding and provided with mentorship and technical support for project implementation. Projects selected should be completed by July 2022. In addition, a Pre-Bootcamp workshop will be hosted in December 2021.
The two most promising solutions from Sierra Leone will be submitted for consideration in the Global GenU Youth Challenge.
Interested applicants can apply https://bit.ly/GenUSLYouthInnovation
Applications will be open from the 28th of October 2022, and the deadline for all submissions is the 27th of November 2022 by 5:00 PM GMT.
For more information, contact us via email at genunlimited_sl@dsti.gov.
Or by phone SMS/text the word GENU to 2080 on Orange or Africell for FREE
More photos of the launch
The flare and liveliness that define our years of youth have often been portrayed as one of the most fleeting scenes of life. A scene where we move with ease, enjoy momentary thrills, and bask in the cheap luxury that is time. Former British PM Benjamin Disraeli once quaintly described “the Youth of a Nation as the trustees of posterity.”
Youth is the period of productivity, industry, and enterprise. Now more than ever, young people deserve a seat at the table as they have an indispensable role in helping humanity create a future built on sustainability and self-reliance. Governments must tap into the expertise, ingenuity, and energy of their young people and then deploy these ideas into Africa’s economic transformation drive.
The Ministry of Youth Affairs, in fulfillment of its mandate, to prepare and empower the young people of Sierra Leone to make meaningful contributions to national development partnered with UNICEF and The Directorate of Science, Technology, and Innovation, to put out a call for a nationwide nomination of young people serving as youth leaders in their communities.
This initiative sought to achieve two things fundamentally; firstly, to select two young people to represent Sierra Leone at the GenU Global Governance Structure and secondly, to illuminate the relatively obscure but profoundly impactful activities undertaken by young people in their respective communities and spheres of influence.
Young people must embrace the wave of opportunity, growth, and progress that technology has to offer. Round Table dialogues set the tone for a more extensive discourse on the role and evolution of tomorrow’s leaders – Dr. Suleiman Braimoh, Country Rep, UnicefSL.
136 youth leaders were nominated 1179 times from every region across Sierra Leone. Amongst these, the six nominees with the highest nominations were selected for an interview.
The six top qualifying nominees were Zipporah Hawa Moriba, Patrick Hassien Gbessay. Samuel Mattia, Martin Daimbaquee, Isha Gibril Sesay, and Isatu Moses. The selection process was merit-based and accorded equal opportunities to young men and women. There was an intentional effort to shortlist candidates from different districts and diverse backgrounds in relation to gender, age, and ethnic identity.
After the selection process, Zipporah Hawa Moriba and Patrick Hassien Gbessay emerged as the winning nominees.
Zipporah Hawa Moriba is from Freetown. She is the Founder and Director of Girls Aid Movement. Currently, She presently pursues an undergraduate degree in Public Sector Management at the Institute of Public Administration and Management, University of Sierra Leone. She volunteers at Restless Development and MenEngage Africa.
Samuel Patrick Hassien Gbessay is the 25-year-old CEO and Founder of Star Catch Up Salone and staunch advocate at Defence for Children International. He is from Serabu, Bumpeh Ngao Chiefdom, Bo District, Southern Sierra Leone.
Although these nominees hail from diverse backgrounds, the commonplace theme is that they have shown traits of progressive leadership as catalysts for development with little resources available to them.
Golda Fania, the GenU-Sierra Leone, Project Lead at DSTI, asserted that GenU has the latent potential to redefine existing notions about the role of young people in accelerating socio-economic development and nation-building.
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