I am the Change – Today and Tomorrow #I_AcTT

 I am the change – Today and Tomorrow (IAcTT) is a national & state-level youth-led COVID-19 awareness campaign which engaged & empowered young people as ‘agents of change’ and amplified their role & participation in curbing the transmission of COVID-19 in their communities. The campaign disseminated evidence-based COVID-19 health, safety & other related messages and also promoted vaccination among youth & others, online and on-ground. The timeline for the awareness campaign was from April, 2021 to October, 2021. 

With COVID-19 pandemic affecting multiple aspects (physical, mental, social etc.) of life of the people all around the world, including that of young people (34.3% of India’s population fall into the age group of 15-34 years); the IAcTT campaign was conceptualized to put young people’s health & wellbeing as a priority and empower them to tackle the pandemic & its effects. The campaign was implemented in partnership with EngenderHealth, and support from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), India.

Key aspects of the campaign :

• Reliance on research and evidence : Research & surveys were conducted to understand COVID-19 awareness & behaviours among youth, and the data from the same helped the campaign identify the key themes & youth-friendly tone & formats of the campaign messages and develop the campaign communication strategies.
• Engagement of a Youth Advisory : TYPF on-boarded a 7 member Youth Advisory which brought in young people’s perspective and also gave feedback to every aspect of the campaign; owing to their diverse backgrounds & years of experience of working with young people.
  Members of the Youth Advisory –
  Gurminder Singh; young leader from the FPAI (Family Planning Association of India) network
  Asma Khan; young leader from the UNICEF YuWaah network and AAWAJ network
  Arun Singh; young news anchor, reporter, digital content creator and social media influencer
  Bhaumika Gupta; young school leader with strong ties to the NCC (National Cadet Corps) network
  Kuldeep Sikarwar; young leader from the Community, The Youth Collective and Anhad Pravah networks
  Dr Poorvaprabha Patil; young leader from MSAI (Medical Students Association of India) network
  Tarunima Agarwal; young school leader
• Engagement and capacity building of Youth Leaders : TYPF recruited & worked closely with a diverse cohort of 55 Youth Leaders from 11 states/UTs, with prior experience of working around COVID-19. Each of these Youth Leaders in-turn formed & managed a team of 10 young people, to assist them with the campaign.
  Youth Leaders’ capacities were built around communication, leadership & team management and also by training them around application DELTA, which facilitated the dissemination of campaign messages online by Youth Leaders & their teams. Support and guidance was provided at every step of the campaign to these Youth Leaders and their teams by TYPF.
• Online dissemination of the campaign messages and awareness : The campaign messages were vetted & approved by experts from WHO and also the youth advisory to ensure technical correctness and youth relevance & friendliness.
  The regional translations of the campaign messages were vetted by experts & also the Youth Leaders from the campaign. The campaign messages were developed in 7 regional languages apart from English and Hindi.
  The campaign focused on creating awareness on COVID-19 protocols and also its key thematic areas – vaccination, youth as change agents and care & services by young people.
  Youth Leaders and their teams disseminated the campaign messages (20 in number) online into their youth networks & communities, reaching out to 1,42,000+ people at all times.
  They’ve also created awareness around COVID-19 vaccination at vaccination centers during the week of International Youth Day 2021, reaching out to 6900+ people.

Specific social media action & engagement ensured outreach to a wider audience of young people, across platforms, through interactive live sessions with the Young Leaders from the campaign, motivating posts, informative posts and onboarding influencers & celebrities as well.

• On-ground action led by youth : The campaign collaborated with 3 Young Leaders working at grassroots level (one each from the states/UTs Assam, Jammu and Kashmir and Maharashtra), to carry out the campaign on-ground COVID-19 awareness activities. They further enrolled support and collaboration from local networks & organisations for the same.
  In Assam – COVID-19 awareness was created at 40 schools in rural and remote areas. Poster making competitions were organised at schools, with COVID-19-related-themes as topics. 1120+ students in-total participated in these competitions. And COVID-19 awareness was created among additional 2800+ students at schools, through the display of the posters made. Campaign posters and best posters made were put up in 220+ villages/ communities, reaching out to 1,00,000+ people indirectly.
  In Jammu and Kashmir – COVID-19 awareness was created verbally among 5000 households in the semi-urban areas/urban-slums of Jammu district and 5000 Sanjeevani kits (COVID-19 awareness pamphlets and COVID-19 protective gear) were distributed as well.
  In tribal areas of Maharashtra – 3 COVID-19 vaccination camps were organised and 380+ people were vaccinated; with 6 ‘vaccine raths’ (vehicles) facilitating the to-and-fro transport of 120+ people. 8 short videos and 2 short films were created in regional dialects (to create COVID-19 awareness) and were screened in 18 meetings covering 60+ villages and 10,000+ people (through meetings, vaccination camps, vaccine raths, banners, posters etc.) ; and the same were shared online as well (across platforms – YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, WhatsApp etc.), reaching out to 1,50,000+ people online. 600+ COVID-19 safety kits (COVID-19 protective gear) were distributed in-total.

Overall impact : Overall, with 600+ young people onboard, COVID-19 awareness through the ‘I am the change – Today and Tomorrow’ campaign was created among young people and the general population as well; belonging to diverse age groups, genders, demographic areas etc.
In-total, the campaign reached out to 2,92,000+ people online directly and 41,000+ people on-ground directly & 1,00,000+ people on-ground indirectly.

The network members reported an increase in their team management, communication & interpersonal skills; and an increase in their confidence to carry out youth-centric projects in the future.

Implementation states –

• Andhra Pradesh
• Arunachal Pradesh
• Assam
• Bihar
• Jammu and Kashmir
• Karnataka
• Kerala
• Maharashtra
• Tamil Nadu
• Uttar Pradesh
• West Bengal