Program mobilizes youth to co-create socioenvironmental transformation projects

The UNLEASH Amazon regional innovation laboratory brought more than 100 young people together to discuss sustainable development solutions for their biome.

In October, more than 100 young adults from the nine states of the Brazilian Legal Amazon met in Manaus for the UNLEASH Amazon regional innovation lab.

The initiative is run by UNLEASH, an organization dedicated to mobilizing youth for social transformation, with the partnership of Chemonics International, which also manages the Land Innovation Fund.

The event in Manaus was entirely dedicated to the Amazon biome’s socio-environmental challenges and was the first regional laboratory organized by UNLEASH in South America.  The Amazon version was also the first to be entirely co-created in partnership with a local innovation ecosystem.

The idea was to prioritize the Amazon agenda and discuss it from the standpoint of young people living in the region. More than 70% of the participants came from traditional Amerindian, quilombola, extractivist or riverside communities – a record for all the innovation labs ever held by UNLEASH.

Drawing on their expertise acquired from monitoring the portfolio's innovation projects, professionals from the Land Innovation Fund acted as facilitators, judges or mentors at UNLEASH Amazon, supporting the teams as they co-created collaborative and sustainable solutions.

THE INNOVATION LAB:

Over the course of a week, the young participants took part in mentoring and group dynamics to turn their ideas into projects for social transformation. Through a constant, collaborative dialogue, they identified challenges and outlined solutions to several problems afflicting the region.

Combining traditional knowledge and UNLEASH’s innovation methodology, they went through all the stages of developing an innovative project and produced solutions aligned with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The multiplicity of their voices gave the participating teams a diversity of viewpoints and approaches.  On the agenda were issues such as land use, environmental education, eco-tourism, sustainable agricultural management, ecological restoration and strengthening the bioeconomy, as conceived and discussed by youth from the region.

A total of 26 solutions emerged during UNLEASH Amazon and were presented in pitches at the end of the event. Organized into two thematic tracks – Environmental Protection and Responsibility, and Sustainable Economic Development and Bioeconomy – the initiatives addressed a mosaic of some of the local population's biggest challenges, such as rural exodus and food insecurity, both aggravated by the effects of climate change.

THE FINALISTS:

The Amazon edition of the innovation lab was the first to feature participatory voting to choose the finalist teams. Five proposals made it to the last stage of the competition, and three of them won prizes – one for each thematic track and another chosen by the public.

Elected by popular vote, the RORRAM team proposed the creation of a cassava nursery to mitigate food insecurity affecting the Amerindian population in northern Roraima state. As a staple fare on local diets, this tuber crop is suffering the impacts of climate change. Almost 70 percent of the region's species are endangered.

For the Sustainable Economic Development and Bioeconomy track, the prize went to the KUNAY MODA COM PROPOSITO team's project. Their proposal is to offer training in indigenous fashion and promote young people’s cultural identity in the region.

In the Environmental Protection and Responsibility category, the TURIMPACTO team created a sustainable tourism plan to counter rural exodus, and to stimulate new jobs, the circular economy and cultural exchanges in the region's riverside communities.

At the closing ceremony, indigenous leader Vanda Witoto emphasized the importance of recovering ancestral knowledge in order to build solutions for the environment. She reminded us that responsibility for the land is not up to indigenous peoples alone, but to all of us. "Networks are fundamental to making what is already strong in our territory powerful," she concluded.