Global Youth Meeting on Health, 2021 (GYM 2021) Outcome 1

Overview

No longer a child and not yet an adult, the adolescent years are a trying period in one’s life. Assailed by doubts and challenges on many fronts, this is the time when they need a platform to connect, voice, involve, and make a difference in their lives and societies. The young and adolescents need a system that recognizes their substantial role as change agents and potential leaders to voice their energy and ideas.

By 2065, the global youth demographic is expected to reach 1.4 billion. Inequality, growing disease burden, poverty, injustice, lack of opportunity, and other prominent social concerns impacting young people, are often overlooked and ignored. In addition to the multiple ongoing challenges posed to their health and wellbeing across the globe, more threats arising due to the COVID-19 pandemic are also strongly anticipated. Mental health, gender-based domestic violence, discontinuation in education, loss of employment, limited access to external support systems, substance abuse, Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) have impacted the young and adolescents during the pandemic.