AICTE Initiates Clarion Call to 14,300 Universities and Institutions to Join Young Warrior Movement Against COVID-19

On Jun 4, 2021

New Delhi, June 04, 2021: All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) announced its support as Coalition Partner to the nationwide #YoungWarrior movement, initiated by YuWaah and UNICEF. It joins Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MoYAS), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and 1350+ partners across Government, Civil Society, UN Agencies and Private Sector to engage 5 million young people to lead action against COVID-19 and impact 50 million people.

The #YoungWarrior Movement is being led by India’s young people between ages 10-30. For this, the #youngwarrior will do a series of easy and real-life tasks, earning a certificate of participation by UNICEF for their actions. These tasks will be hosted on online and offline platforms in 11 regional languages.

Some of these tasks are: ‘Fake news police’: train in myth-busting tools to detect myths/falsehood/misinformation; ‘Vaccine buddy’: to encourage registration for vaccination and ‘Tension buster’: to enable peer-to-peer mental health support by young people.

As a part of this collaboration, AICTE will:

Encourage youth to join the movement
Organise multiple online capacity building session during June-July 2021 on topics like COVID appropriate behaviour, vaccine hesitancy, home care prevention, reliable & verified information & knowledge etc.
Facilitate amplification of verified information and correct knowledge by accessing the #YoungWarrior Knowledge Hub (http://prachicp.com/youngwarriors/). It will also encourage young people to develop relevant and useful content and add to this knowledge library.
Encourage young people to use social media as a tool for community therapy, where they can narrate inspiring COVID stories through videos/ articles that others can learn from, follow and replicate. These will also be promoted on social media through partners and influencers.

Pledging his support to the initiative, Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE said, “AICTE is committed to unite young energy and spirit to fight against the pandemic collectively. In the interest of health and wellbeing of our Country, we encourage our students and teachers to participate in the #YoungWarrior movement and through its activities and tasks, safeguard themselves and their families as well as others around them. Young people can assume a leadership role during such a crisis, which can also help instill strong leadership skills, empathy as well as generate social consciousness in them.”

Dhuwarakha Sriram, Chief of Generation Unlimited (YuWaah), Youth Development & Partnerships, UNICEF India said, “We are grateful to have the support of AICTE towards the #YoungWarrior movement. Through its affiliate institutions, AICTE engages collectively with over a million students every year. Through its encouragement, young people will be provided with not only the right knowledge and resources to understand effective COVID response, but also bolster and hone their leadership skills with the larger sense of good.”

The #YoungWarrior movement has been actively engaging with country’s younger audiences, reaching over 100+ million through its mass and social media outreach, with 250,000+ young warriors who have been actively engaging through its UReport, IVR platforms, and capacity building.

To join, young people can engage through the following ways:

To register as a Young Warrior:

WhatsApp: Type YWA & send to +91-9650414141 (technology-based chat-bot platform called U Report)
Interactive voice response (IVR): Send a missed call to 0-8066019225.
Facebook: Join via this link through FB messenger https://m.me/ureportindia/?ref=ywa
Telegram: Search for ureportindia. Press Start. Type ‘YWA’ and send.

To register as a Youth Advocate of the #YoungWarrior Movement: fill a Google Form: https://forms.gle/JuRTQF6ktD78yBHq7

In addition, on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), take a pledge by posting your message along with “I pledge to be a #young warrior, tagging 5 friends.

For more details, visit https://www.yuwaah.org/youngwarrior or YuWaah’s social media pages on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.