EU Ambassador announces application call for Youth Sounding Board

KATHMANDU: EU Ambassador to Nepal, Nona Deprez launched the application call for Youth Sounding Board (YSB).

The Youth Sounding Board is a consultative space for young people that aims to create real, fundamental, long-lasting changes in how the EU engages with young people in its development cooperation, a press statement issued by the European Delegation in Kathmandu said.

The formation of the Youth Sounding Board started in Brussels and similar boards have been formed around the world.

In Nepal, the formation of the Youth Sounding Board will be carried out together by the EU, Youth Innovation Lab, Oxfam in Nepal, and Helvetas in Nepal and their consortium partners who are the grant winner of the projects on Youth at the Center of COVID Recovery in Nepal, it said.

Restless Development, consortium partners of the EU-funded project led by Youth Innovation Lab, will coordinate between the consortiums and the Youth Sounding Board members.

Ambassador Deprez shared that youth are not only the future of the world but also the present.

Announcing the application call for the Youth Sounding Board in Nepali, H.E. Deprez said, “I am very happy to announce that we will have a Youth Sounding Board and that the Youth Sounding Board will be a consultative space for Nepali Youth to influence the European Union’s development cooperation in Nepal.”

The YSB will be a platform of 25 youth members from Madhesh, Karnali, and Sudurpashchim provinces, serving an unpaid mandate of 12 months.

The Youth Sounding Board will make the voices of youth heard, advise on key strategic priorities of the EU strategy in Nepal, and engage in communication, networking, and dialogues and advocacy platform that amplifies the voices of young people in Nepal, the statement said.

The call for candidates will be from 9 May to 31 May and Ambassador Deprez invited all the youth from Madhesh, Karnali, and Sudurpashchim provinces to be part of this exciting cohort and to work with the EU to make its action more youth-centric, relevant, and participatory.