Youth in Mexico Lead Transformations and Receive Support from UNESCO and Nestlé

After a process of evaluation and selection by an international jury of youth and experts, three social transformation projects by young people and youth collectives in Mexico received seed capital of USD 10,000 from the UNESCO and Nestlé pilot program for the Latin America and Caribbean region: Impulso Joven – Because Youth Matters.

Young people, particularly young women, are systematically more exposed to contexts of inequality, especially in the most unequal regions: Latin America and the Caribbean. The Inter-American Development Bank estimates that the richest 10% has an average of 12 times higher income than the poorest 10%. However, young people continue to demonstrate their capacity to transform their communities in pursuit of global change, and the world must avoid losing these great opportunities.

The UN estimates that "digital technologies and data contribute to at least 70% of the 169 targets of the Sustainable Development Goals while potentially reducing the cost of achieving these goals by up to 55 trillion" In these fields, young people are crucial, and the 2024 theme of the International Youth Day (August 12) is "From Clicks to Progress: Youth Digital Pathways for Sustainable Development"

UNESCO’s Global Youth Grant Scheme programme encompasses various areas of the Organization’s expertise and resources to support young people worldwide with budgeting, training opportunities, and mentorship to strengthen socially impactful actions. One of its outcomes is Impulso Joven.

Only 20 projects were selected for Impulso Joven from 900 proposals by youth organizations and young people aged 18 to 29 from Latin America and the Caribbean. Three of the 20 initiatives were from Mexico: "Earth-IoT: Conectando el campo" corresponding to the thematic area of Climate Action and Sustainability; "The illness nobody talks about in the village" and "Reading my emotions: emotional education for migrant children at Mexico-USA Border" both focused on the area of Mental Health and Well-being.

The project Earth-IoT: Connecting the Field, by Ángeles Marcial Mejía, a young woman from the Mixteca Poblana, is an agrotechnological proposal to strengthen small and medium-sized agricultural producers, which also contributes to the estimation of generating 8.4 million jobs for young people by the green economy sector by 2030.

On the other hand, around 80% of young people worldwide are exposed to depression and a generalized sense of hopelessness because of the context of multiple challenges facing the world in terms of equality and prosperity. However, indigenous language users face a double challenge as they do not have access to information or mental health services in their own language. These issues are addressed by the project of Erika Hernández Cuevas and Eduardo Ezequiel Martínez Gutiérrez, from the Network of Intercultural Interpreters and Promoters, to initially benefit the more than 1 million people in Oaxaca who belong to an Indigenous People.

Regarding mental health and its relationship with education, Alejandra Morales Torres launched a project from Tamaulipas on emotional education through reading for migrant children, which was also strengthened by the UNESCO and Nestlé program to create safe spaces and support adaptation, integration, and resilience processes.

Impulso Joven is coordinated by UNESCO’s Social and Human Sciences Sector. In Mexico, the Sector strengthens the knowledge, skills, capacities, and attitudes of public and private actors, civil society, and academia to enhance inclusive public policies, promote the ethical approach to sciences and technologies, and facilitate dialogue spaces to mobilize the construction of peaceful, inclusive, and resilient societies from an intercultural, gender, and social transformation perspective.