Overview of Virtual National Youth Conference 2020:

Let me take an opportunity to share my experience and overview one of the largest National Conference of Nepal i.e National Youth Conference 2020 carried out by Nepal Youth Council and supported by more than 50 NGOs of Nepal.  It was carried out at International Youth Day which ran for 4 days where the youth from all cross Nepal i.e from 77 districts  has jointly participated and discussed on the various agendas. This conference used to be carried out with the physical presence of the youth but this year the country is hard hit by the global pandemic of Covid-19 as a result of which this conference has been conducted in the virtual way. It was one of my best and first experience to be a participant of such a mega event as well as pleasing moment to be a representative of Tunza Eco Generation. I am delight to share with you all that Tunza Eco Network has also participated as a supporting partner for this conference and I believe that this has also made Tunza Known to the wider audience. Altogether nearly 400 youth from Nepal has joined this session. There were 8 thematic area for the discussion and the Keynote speaker for the respective field was selected. The major discussion Agenda were “Global Action for youth Engagement and SDGs’’ which was facilitated by Ms. Binita karki one of the SDG advocate of Nepal as well Youth programme officer at UNDP Nepal. This topic and discussion has enlighten the youth on importance, implementations and outcomes of 17 goals. Adding to this another agenda was “Influence of Emotional Intelligence on Decision Making by Leaders” which was facilitated by Ms. Bhawana Shrestha who is also the co founder of My Emotion Matters. It was obviously one of the most informative and insightful session which has highlighted  major aspects our emotion, how could just we control the emotion for being drowned and entangled into the treacherous bug of negativity.

Similarly, Nepal is an agricultural country employing 66% of totals country’s human manpower which add 33% GDP to the National Economy. So with the aim to aware youth about potential of agro business and agri entrepreneurship and engage them to involve in it, another agenda entitled “Empowering Youth through Agro Entrepreneurship in Nepal” has been selected which was facilitated by leading women entrepreneur Ms. Sunita Nhemaphuki, founder member at agrinepal.com.  Along with these another agenda entitled “Conflict Management for youth” has been facilitated by Dr. Pranaya Rana one of the social activist expert in conflict Management who has given clear and insightful vision regarding this topic. Correspondingly one of the most important and subject of global concern agenda i.e “Youth Engagement for the “ cimate Action” has been facilitated by Ms. Arati Khadgi who is working at WWF Nepal. She has demonstrated the work done by WWF Nepal for the climate mitigation and adaptation, she highlighted on the major challenges we the developing countries has been facing in this issue. Similarly other agenda such as “Youth Engagement in Governance”, “stress management: taking control of your stress”, “woman empowerment in Nepal: gender equality”, “ Youth Engagement for Sustainable tourism” , and Digital Literacy and Artificial Intelligence” , “Youth Engagement for Good Governance”, ‘’ Role of Youth in Election and Federalism” was carried out by the respective keynote speakers working on the respective field to empower, encourage youth of different area.

To sum up it was one of the best learning experience that I got during this pandemic and I am also elated for sharing the platform of Tunza Eco Generation to wider audience of Nepal . This conference has built, shaped and modeled myself as one of the youth leader to create a leader not a follower. This conference has successfully ended after the message of UN General Secretary through virtual platform and awarding the youth as well its branch chapter with honor as per the yearly activity.  And the best part was that we the team from Rupandehi chapter (as NYC has established its circle all across the Nepal in all 77 districts )  were  honored as “Most Active chapter of NYC” which was one of the biggest achievement for us. After this conference we are planning to carry out provisional conference in our province accumulating 12 districts to empower the youth in various agendas.