Survey Report on Youth-led Digital Engagement Project
Citation: Raihan, S., Uddin, M., & Jonaed (2021). Survey Report: Youth-led Digital Engagement Project. ActionAid Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Like the rest of the world, Bangladesh has also been hit hard on several dimensions by the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, the pandemic’s havoc on health and healthcare facilities, poverty, inequality and livelihood, education, violence against women, and several economic and social aspects were vividly visible. These fallouts have brought in a new set of challenges, both social and economical, in Bangladesh. Although COVID-19 is mainly a health hazard, it caused an unprecedented economic crisis too. The COVID induced economic downturn led to a sharp decline in economic activities all over the country. Due to a fall in demand, many people lost their jobs while many firms have been forced to shut down, which significantly affected livelihood opportunities.
Moreover, COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the educational system in Bangladesh. The closure of schools has pushed many students to uncertainties regarding when or whether they can complete their education. It adds to the suffering of the existing poor households who cannot afford to equip their children with educational resources such as computers, laptops, smartphones, and/or high-speed internet. As a result, there is a surfacing inequality in access to digital education. Besides, several challenges have resurfaced during the pandemic such as child marriage, child labour, and violence against women, amongst others.
Combating the newly emerging challenges would require several strategic planning in multiple areas such as healthcare, social protection, education, gender-based violence, social cohesion, etc. The government of Bangladesh has demonstrated active policies to resolve the challenges emerging from COVID-19. Nevertheless, it is still essential to understand how much of these policies have benefitted at the grassroots level and the existing scopes for improvements.
To address the impact of COVID-19 and enhancing the response and recovery related interventions at the grassroots, ActionAid Bangladesh has launched Youth-led Digital Engagement (YDE) project. Using digital, information, and communications technologies (ICT), the Youth-led Digital Engagement (YDE) project of ActionAid Bangladesh has aimed for young people to generate evidence from the grassroots and facilitate advocacy to the national level on COVID-19 response and recovery on few particular issues.
To enhance the participation of young people from diverse backgrounds, including from both urban and rural settings, the objective of the project is to combine capacity building of young people to utilize both analogue and digital methods at all levels: in data collection, data analysis, information dissemination, advocacy and campaigning at the country level. The project aims to strengthen the young people’s capacity to act as agents of change at the community levels. SANEM has partnered with ActionAid Bangladesh in this endeavour.
As part of the project, to generate evidence from the grassroots, a survey was conducted in four selected districts: Kurigram, Satkhira, Rajshahi, and Barguna. Four youth organizations from the four districts were the survey’s implementing. This report presents the findings of the survey.
