World Refugee Day Youth Competition 2020: Post-COVID solutions for refugees

The competition calls eligible young people to bring up their ideas, and thus honor the courage and strength of people who had to leave their homes and restart a new life in a new place. The main prize is a laptop.

Background information:

The outbreak of COVID-19 has shown that we all are vulnerable. It has exposed how it is important to have access to clean water and soap, accurate information, basic goods and sustainable job. The virus has impacted all societies by spreading without barriers through countries and continents. But its impact on people across the globe was not equal.  Certain vulnerable groups, including refugees, have been hit the hardest by the pandemic.

Refugees are people, who, to save their lives had no other choice but to leave the country they lived in and find a safe place somewhere else. Some refugees could travel legally, using their passports, but some refugees – did not have such opportunity and had to risk their lives to reach safety. People become refugees because they do not feel safe in the place they lived in – it might be because of war or fear that they will be hurt because of how they look, in what they believe, where they are from or social group they are part of.

Imposed lockdowns and home isolation measures during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in additional challenges for refugees. Restrictions on movement disrupted their opportunities to work and earn income, whereas lack of legal status and/or valid identity documents limited their access to emergency help provided by governments.

Competition description:

On the occasion of the of the World Refugee Day UNHCR for Central Asia is organizing competition to encourage young people aged from 16 years old and above to share their ideas on how refugees can be supported to recover from difficult socio-economic situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The competition calls eligible young people to bring up their ideas, and thus honor the courage and strength of people who had to leave their homes and restart a new life in a new place.

Competition task:

Difficulties faced by refugees across the world are not identical, they are different from country to country, from place to place. Therefore, participants are free to select the country they have interest to research and prepare a project that aims to help refugees after COVID-19 in one of the following areas:

• Education and skills development of refugees after the COVID-19 pandemic. How to help refugees access learning opportunities and benefit from them?
• Economic well-being and employment of refugees after the COVID-19 pandemic. How to help refugees (re-) integrate into local labour markets after COVID-19?

Requirements to the submission:

1. Project needs to be submitted in the form Presentation in PowerPoint, Google Slides or Prezi, up to 10 slides maximum.
2. Language: English or Russian
3. The structure of the presentation should be as following:
   
   – Description of the problem you want to solve
   
   – Proposed solution
   
   – Rationale for the proposed solution
   
   – Expected results
   
   – Resources needed
   
   – Reference list of sources used for your project
4. The presentation should follow the required structure

Eligibility requirements:

• This competition is open to all young people, who are at students at schools or universities, at age of 16 and above residing in Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
• Participants are only allowed to submit one project.
• Persons affiliated with UNHCR staff and partners implementing UNHCR projects cannot participate in this competition.

Selection Procedure:

Winners of the competition will be selected through two-staged selection process. For anonymity purpose at the first stage all eligible projects will be numbered and presented to members of the Evaluation Commission for assessment. The Evaluation Commission will consist of representatives of UNHCR and UNHCR project partners in Central Asia. The Evaluation Commission will review and assess projects by applying criteria as shown below. The top scoring projects will be shortlisted and taken forward to the second stage for further review by jury appointed by, but independent from, the Evaluation Commission.

Winners of the competition will be announced via Facebook page of UNHCR Central Asia on 17 June 2020.

Evaluation criteria:

1. Demonstrated understanding of the context and problem – 30%
2. Originality and feasibility of the idea – 30%
3. Effective use of additional materials (statistics, researches and others) – 20%
4. Clarity and coherence of the presentation – 15%
5. Written work and design: spelling and grammar, slide arrangement, appropriate use of visuals – 5%

Prizes for winners

• Winner of the 1st place will be awarded a laptop;
• Winners of the 2nd and 3rd places will be awarded tablets.

How to submit:

Applicants should complete a registration form and send it together with the presentation to email: kazalres@unhcr.org with the subject line “WRD 2020 competition” no later than 10 June 2020.

Heavy presentations (over 10 MB) should be shared via file transfer services.

Incomplete applications and applications submitted after the deadline will not be considered.

If you have any questions, please send them to email: kazal@unhcr.org