Since the announcement of the opening ceremony, the UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge 2023: Youth Action for Water hosted various activities, offering interactive engagement between the participants, experts and mentors.
The challenge kicked off with training session comprising four knowledge-sharing webinars. Experts from diverse fields shared their invaluable insights with the participants, covering different topics, including soft skills such as pitching skills, and systematic technology, such as integrated water resources management, climate mitigation and adaptation, and problem analysis and development.
Following the training session, the participants engaged in workshop session, including knowledge sharing by the experts, and the presentation by the participants highlighting how they use this knowledge to approach real-life implementation. After this activity, the challenge became more active because the participants had to plan their own initiatives for water resilience in UNESCO-designated sites.
During the checkpoint session, the mentors guided the teams by supporting weekly checkpoint cards in order to ensure positive learning experiences, stay on course and offer a platform for any queries or clarifications related to the challenge, thereby preventing potential confusion and misunderstandings. The teams also had the opportunity to request one-on-one discussions or mentoring sessions with the experts of their choice to closely discuss their ideas and request guidance from them.
After all of these preparation stages, in the grand finale on February 28th and 29th, 2024, teams took the spotlight to present their ultimate ideas and solutions during the final pitching sessions. The seven most outstanding teams were selected as the winner, and they will continue with the second phase of implementation and present their initiatives at the World Water Forum 2024, fostering youth engagement in climate and water resilience for a more sustainable environment in the future.
This first phase of UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge plays an important role, offering a positive contribution to water resilience. Soon the second phase will start and the implementation strategies of the team will be explored practically. Stay tuned for the next phase of UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge 2024: Road to Bali.
