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COVID-19 and Youth: COVID-19 and Learning

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unequivocal impact on young people. An International Labour Organisation (ILO) found that “the impact of the pandemic on young people [is] systematic, deep and disproportionate.” Twenty-three per cent of young people aged 18-24 who were working pre-pandemic are now unemployed, and those who are working have reported reductions in hours and income. “Students’ perceptions of their future career prospects are bleak, with 40 per cent facing the future with uncertainty and 14 per cent with fear,” the report adds. Globally, young people are feeling more uncertain about what the future holds.

New Virtual Magazine: The Art of Climate Action

Effective strategies to learn about and engage with climate change play an important role in addressing this challenge. There is growing recognition that education needs to change in order to address climate change, yet the question remains: “How?” How does one engage young people with a topic that is often perceived as abstract, distant and complex?

Art can be a powerful tool for communication. Within the growing field of science communication, art has been identified as an effective instrument to raise awareness with the help of video work, documentaries, infographics, illustrations, and comics about climate change impacts and adaptation strategies. Engagement using creative, artistic practices has the potential to go beyond traditional methods of communication and help people develop innovative ideas to combat climate change.

Refugees in Higher Education: Dawood Monis, Afghanistan - Germany

When you become a refugee – a person who has escaped from their own country for political, religious, or economic reasons or because of a war – you lose not only a home. You feel a part of your identity falling off, while the strong bonds built with friends and families back home are also lost along the way. You are suddenly placed in a new environment with no one to rely on. Just imagine how much courage it takes to rebuild your life from scratch.

To commemorate the World Refugee Day on 20 June, the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) has produced a series of podcasts and articles, bringing together stories of refugees from Afghanistan, Thailand/Myanmar, Nepal/Bhutan, Haiti and Rwanda.

Researching the Impact of the Pandemic on Internal Migrant Workers in India

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a severe impact in many countries, particularly developing ones. According to the World Economic Situation and Prospects as of mid-2021, this global crisis has “clearly worsened poverty and within-country inequality”, and it is expected that “will leave long-lasting scars on labour markets, while reversing progress on poverty and income inequality in many economies.” The context in India in this sense, is complex.

Advocating for the Restoration of Ecosystems in the DRC

On 5 June, World Environment Day is celebrated, as an opportunity to create and foster awareness about the urgent need to preserve and enhance the environment. This year, the focus of this international day is the call for urgent action to restore and revive our damaged ecosystems. To mark this day, a conference took place at the Bugabo campus of the , a UNAI member institution in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Refugees in Higher Education: Neh Meh, Myanmar/Thailand - USA

When you become a refugee – a person who has escaped from their own country for political, religious, or economic reasons or because of a war - you lose not only a home. You feel a part of your identity falling off, while the strong bonds built with friends and families back home are also lost along the way. You are suddenly placed in a new environment with no one to rely on. Just imagine how much courage it takes to rebuild your life from scratch.

To commemorate the World Refugee Day on 20 June, the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) has produced a series of podcasts and articles, bringing together stories of refugees from Afghanistan, Thailand/Myanmar, Nepal/Bhutan, Haiti and Rwanda.

UNAI Special Series: Refugees in Higher Education

When you become a refugee – a person who has escaped from their own country for political, religious, or economic reasons or because of a war - they lose not only a home. You feel a part of your identity falling off, while the strong bonds built with friends and families back home are also lost along the way. You are suddenly placed in a new environment with no one to rely on. Just imagine how much courage it takes to rebuild your life from scratch.

To commemorate the World Refugee Day on 20 June, the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) has produced a series of podcasts and articles, bringing together stories of refugees from Afghanistan, Thailand/Myanmar, Nepal/Bhutan, Haiti and Rwanda.

Promoting Intellectual Property Law to Protect Creativity

The , a UNAI member institution in Spain, has been conducting a project entitled ‘The Art of Protection’, developed by Professors Francisco Oncina and Isabel Alemany. According to the experts, art and design should not be seen only as identifying elements of cultures, but also as an “engine” of socioeconomic development given their commercial relevance. Considering this, protection of intellectual property must be enforced so artists can benefit from what they do and continue to make their art.

How Cities can Use Information Technology to Combat COVID-19

How has COVID-19 affected the way cities approach public health crises such as pandemics and the technology they use to help them safeguard public health? This is the question a research group coordinated by Prof. Celso Machado, Jr. at , a member institution of UNAI in Brazil, set out to answer with a new study on the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in city management. The study analyses a wide range of environmental, social, and economic variables, while examining sustainable and resilient cities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Robots to Rescue: Using Technology to Mitigate Effects of Natural Disasters

(NUT), a UNAI member institution in Japan serving as the Hub for , has been a world-leading institution in the development of disaster response robots used to save lives and prevent damage from spreading in times of disaster.

Rescue robots have been used for many years and their technology has improved dramatically over the years, including their mechanical reliability when employed in the field. Due to the wide array and complexity of disasters experienced not only in Japan but around the world, innovation is a critical factor in robot technology, which is considered a next generation industry that can foster employment and economic development and help advance the through practical solutions.

Enabling Quality Remote Learning During the Pandemic

“Leaving no one behind means leaving no one offline, yet, half of the world’s population, an estimated 3.7 billion people, does not use the Internet,” warns the Policy Brief: Leveraging digital technologies for social inclusion issued by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). A published by UNESCO noted the impact of this digital divide on education during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that the move to digital learning has excluded “large numbers of learners, amplifying existing educational disparities.”

Fostering Innovation and Creativity for Social Change

The world faces many challenges today, ranging from health crises and climate change, to political and social turmoil and overpopulation, critical issues that require the knowledge and resources that institutions of higher education can provide to support societal change and foster social innovation. 

According to a , social innovations are “new solutions (products, services, models, markets, processes etc.) that simultaneously meet a social need more effectively than existing solutions and lead to new or improved capabilities and relationships and better use of assets and resources.”

Teaching Carbon Literacy to Combat Climate Change

Countries need to act now to address climate change and there is a need for collaborative approaches that connect citizens with policymakers to create sustainable solutions. The notes that countries should “reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible” and “undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with best available science.”

With this is mind, , a UNAI member institution in the United Kingdom, has partnered with The Carbon Literacy Project to promote an economy based on low-carbon energy sources with minimal greenhouse gas emissions, in particular carbon dioxide.

Fighting Modern Slavery through Awareness and Training

Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads, “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” But according to the 2017 issued by the International Labour Organization, the International Organization for Migration and the Walk Free Foundation, “On any given day in 2016, there were likely to be more than 40 million men, women, and children who were being forced to work against their will under threat or who were living in a forced marriage that they had not agreed to.”

Training Students for the Green Jobs of the Future

The (UKK), a UNAI member institution in Japan, is engaged in the development of environment-focused human resources under its “Cultivate the Environment” goal, one of three goals formulated by the university in 2016. According to the institution, solutions to environmental problems require an interdisciplinary approach, and it is essential for students to acquire knowledge and skills from a wide range of fields, as well as develop networks with people in different professions and specialties.