Objective

1. To capacitate youth volunteers from the Volunteer for Bangladesh on the importance of youth participation in the national elections of Bangladesh and their voting rights.
2. To create awareness among the youth (64 districts) around their participation in the 2023 National election and their voting rights through community mobilization by the volunteers.

Project Summary

The upcoming national election in Bangladesh is an important event that shapes the country’s future. However, many young people are not fully aware of their voting rights or the significance of their involvement in the electoral process.

To address this issue, Volunteer for Bangladesh embarks on a campaign to capacitate 448 youth volunteers on the importance of participation in national elections and their voting rights through a two day residential workshop, where they will be prepared for community mobilization. Additionally, the organization creates awareness among the youth in all 64 districts of Bangladesh through community mobilization efforts led by these volunteers. Through this initiative, young people are encouraged to exercise their right to vote and become active participants in shaping the country’s future. During the workshop, participants learn about good governance, democracy, voting, and youth rights, and work on problem tree analysis to solution mapping. Volunteers design and implement awareness campaigns based on their local political structure. Each district receives seed money for implementing community initiatives involving more youths. Youth volunteers share their activities on social media using the #YouthVoteMatter hashtag to make the campaign viral. In addition to the social media posts shared by these volunteers, a separate social media campaign will run throughout the project period. Contents around “Youth Vote Matters” is shared from all JAAGO Foundation and Volunteer for Bangladesh sites to further increase their participation. Awareness materials such as videos, static posts, and youth perceptions are shared through this campaign.

The project is a crucial initiative and capacitating and mobilizing youth volunteers and creating awareness through social media, it makes a significant impact on youth involvement in national elections in Bangladesh.