EDUCATION EXCELLENCE
EDUCATION EXCELLENCE

Youth ImpACT Award 2.0

  • initiate
  • capacity building
  • innovate
  • catalyst for collaboration
  • impact
  • year
    2019 - 2023
  • location
    Hong Kong
  • partners
    The Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association of Hong Kong
  • beneficiaries
    Secondary school students, NGO partners and the general public
  • no of beneficiaries
    3,000 secondary school students
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A Landmark Social Service X Social Innovation Award for Youth

In the fast-evolving social landscape in the 21st century, young people not only need to gain a solid understanding of their society and the world at large, but also have to capitalize on their values, skills and talents to make contribution to the community.

To address different social issues and challenges, we need more young people to take an active role in serving the society and also more creativity and innovation in generating effective solutions.

The Youth ImpACT Award 2016-19 (YIAA 1.0, 感創敢為: 青年社會創新服務獎), a three-year service learning x social innovation education program jointly presented by The D. H. Chen Foundation (the “Foundation”) and The Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs Association of Hong Kong (“BGCA”), has endeavored to achieve these goals. Launched in 2016 and supported by the Education Bureau, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, SIE Fund together with the three local School Heads Associations, YIAA 1.0 has engaged over 3,000 S.1-6 students from almost 200 secondary schools which have together generated over 900 innovative service ideas that addressed critical needs faced by disadvantaged children, elderly and people with different abilities. Partnering with over 40 local NGOs and social enterprises, YIAA 1.0 has also offered diverse experiential-learning opportunities to nurture participants’ empathy and enable them to turn social inspirations into actionable impacts.

  • Students wearing eye masks and taking white canes to understand challenges faced by visually impaired

  • Students step into elders' shoes by wearing age simulation suit

  • YIAA training workshop

Stemming from the encouraging results of YIAA 1.0, the Foundation and BGCA continue to empower youths to be innovative and entrepreneurial social change-makers through Youth ImpACT Award 2.0 (“YIAA 2.0”) 2019-2023. The four-year extensively enriched YIAA 2.0 will comprise of five distinctive learning components:

Social Innovation Clubs– to promote youths’ positive attributes and 21st century skills among youth through both intensive and extensive social innovation training;

School-based Social Innovation Curriculum Development Scheme– to integrate social innovation skills and experiential learning experiences into formal secondary school curriculum;

YIAA Competition– the core activity of YIAA 1.0 fostering youth’s social commitment and social innovativeness;

Annual Education Summit & Learning Showcase– overseas and local social innovation leaders and educators share their insights and YIAA 2.0 finalists and participants showcase their creative social solutions;

Buddy Program– The D. H. Chen Foundation Scholars and YIAA youths will be “buddied” up to foster each other’s social aspirations and knowledge.

Social Coin will also be introduced to further sustain YIAA youths’ altruistic willingness to serve the community. By converting YIAA youth participants’ training and service hours into social coins, funding will be available for a max. of 24 worthy projects to grow and expand.

A comprehensive Research will be conducted jointly by the YIAA 2.0 team and The Polytechnic University of Hong Kong to study the impacts of the program on positive youth development, as well as develop social innovation pedagogy, curriculum and assessment tools for local schools and youth service organizations.

With such comprehensive program structure, both the Foundation and BGCA hope this landmark program will continue to offer our young people opportunities to establish meaningful connections with their communities and discover their abilities to enrich lives.

For more details, please visit the official website of YIAA.

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