Indigenous Youth Tackle COVID-19 in their Communities

Indigenous communities in Asia and the Pacific were hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic: many are situated in remote locations with poor healthcare services; some speak languages other than those of main news media available to them; others depend on the proper workings of external supply chains for sustaining their livelihoods. 

The Asia Indigenous Youth Platform (AIYP), founded by UNESCO and the Asia Indigenous Peoples Platform supports young indigenous people from South-East and South Asia as agents of change to improve education, rights, livelihoods and protection of indigenous cultures. In 2020, well into the pandemic, the youth of AIYP wanted to take action to help their communities fight COVID-19. What emerged from that impetus was the AIYP Small Grants Project.

This short film, produced in partnership with the International Youth Media Summit, in Nepal, shows some of the work accomplished by the hundreds of indigenous youth in India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, and Philippines mobilized through this project.

More about the Small Grants Project: https://bangkok.unesco.org/content/aiyp-covid-19-response-small-grants-projects

Learn more about AIYP at: https://aippnet.org/asia-indigenous-youth-platform-aiyp/ 
 
Video production: https://www.iyms.org/

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