#

Youth2Youth Annual Research Competition 2020

Description: VOICE Innovation Lab calls for entries for the second edition of its annual Research Essay Competition in Nigeria.

The essay competition which is put together for undergraduates in Nigerian tertiary institutions is organized as part of VOICE Innovation Lab: Youth2Youth Flagship for Social Change initiative to promote creative writing and reading culture amongst youth in Nigeria to highlight and address challenges faced by Nigerian Youth and encourage active citizenship.

Eligibility: 

The competition is open to Nigerian undergraduates between the ages of 16-29.

Topic:

Addressing youth marginalization:  The link between employment and capacity building as a tool for youth development in Nigeria.

Guidelines on possible areas to cover during the research

As a concerned Nigerian;

  • Give a brief overview on your personal analysis on the current situation of youth unemployment in Nigeria.
  • Do a comparative analysis on best practices and recommendations from other countries on improved youth employment strategies.
  • Collate raw data on the views and perspective of young people on the root cause and solution of unemployment.
  • Highlight the connection between youth employment and access to capacity building.
  • Buttress your opinion on the solutions (policy wise, advocacy and influencing for change and personal development approaches) that you envisage will address the gap.

Objectives: 

The research competition aims to highlight unemployment and lack of access to capacity building as a key issue or factor inhibiting the socio-economic and political development of youth in Nigeria. The proposed research work by participants is expected to address the issue of youth unemployment; connecting it to the role capacity building plays in addressing this issue.

Findings to be published to foster policy advocacy for change. The research will adopt an interdisciplinary and gender-sensitive approach to analyze the diverse levels of marginalization of young people in the development processes in Nigeria.

The data will be captured by combining qualitative and quantitative methods. Intense in-depth analysis of various kinds of public documents, academic studies and interviews with relevant stakeholders and key informants to investigate the factors of youth unemployment.

Criteria: 

  • No entry fee is required.
  • All entries must be original works, in English.
  • Each entrant may submit only one essay.
  • All entries are final. No revisions are accepted.
  • Plagiarism and off-topic will result in outright disqualification.
  • Entries should not have been previously published in any professional media.
  • Entries must be from 3000 words in length. This does not include referencing such as footnotes and bibliography.
  • All entries must be double-spaced in Times New Roman 12pt, with numbered pages in MS Word. All other formats will be disqualified.
  • The personal information in the entry must be correct. If the competition winner is not reachable due to wrong information (contact number, address and etc.) the prize will be cancelled and be automatically given to the next runner-up.
  • The decisions of the judges are final and are entirely their own and in no part represents the opinion of WAG-ARC.
  • At the discretion of the WAG-ARC, all well-written essays may be published on the relevant national dailies and Websites.
  • WAG-ARC reserves First Serial Rights on all submissions. All other rights to the essay remain in the property of the author.
  • Students can give their essay any caption of their choice. The student before submitting should include the following information on top of their entry:
  • Full name (as it appears in your valid identity card)
  • Sex
  • Age (Date of Birth)
  • Registration Number
  • School name and address.
  • Valid Phone number
  • The student is also to insert a scanned copy of his or her valid school ID card at the last page of the submitted document.
  • All applicants must be following us on all our social media platforms @wearewagarc

Submissions

All entries should be sent as an email in MS Word format to the following email address research@wagarc.org. The email subject should be your full name and the word “RESEARCH COMPETITION ENTRY” e.g. “CIROMA_ADEKUNLE_RESEARCH_COMPETITON_ENTRY”

Winners prizes

There would be 3 winners for the overall essays. The shortlisted finalists will be invited to Abuja for an award ceremony on August 2020. The cost of both ‘travelling and accommodation’ will be borne by the organization. Also, the best 10 essays will be published both on the organization’s website and in a daily newspaper with the names of the writers of each essay.

1st prize: Laptop computer
2nd prize: Laptop computer
3rd prize: Laptop computer

Deadline:

Essay entries Open 3rd July 2020 and Closes 24th July 2020

For more details, visit the webpage of the Y2Y on https://www.y2y.wagarc.org

Undergraduates in Enugu and Abuja are strongly advised to apply.

 

Sharing: