“We're Shaping Future Prospects": How the All-Ukrainian Youth Forum on Sustainable Development Went
A two-panel offline conference from ASDE.
The Association of Sustainable Development Experts (ASDE) held the All-Ukrainian Youth Forum on Sustainable Development. There, representatives of civic organizations, government bodies, and businesses, together with moderators, discussed young people's role in sustainable development. The event took place March 13 at the SATU educational space, bringing together around 50 in-person participants along with a number of sponsors and partners.
DeTalks journalists Viktoriia Hvozd and Artem Hetsko attended the event and spoke with participants and organizers. The DeTalks team gathered the details into this report.
Standing and Growing
"Have you 'networked' with anyone yet?" asks Kyrylo, an acquaintance and student at the Institute of International Relations. Before the event, and during the coffee break, he repeatedly leaves me and comes back with similar words and hunter-sharp eyes, as if scanning for a potential new connection. 'Networking,' it turns out, means gaining new contacts among people who share your line of work or interests.
People like Kyrylo probably make up the majority here, and at first, thoughts like 'isn't this a bit too self-interested?' slip in, but the organizers themselves don't hide it either, and, as it later turns out, some of them came here for the exact same purpose.
In the middle of the round, 'banquet-style' hall stands a booth branded for one of the event's biggest sponsors. On the booth is a QR code linking to a form that lets you find out whether you're a fit for the company, what skills you'd need, and what openings are available. Kyrylo, our now-familiar acquaintance, studies the booth's information with undisguised disappointment upon hearing about the age-and-academic restriction — 'we only take people from their second year on.' Kyrylo is a business analyst, and that kind of talent is always in short supply at big companies.
The forum is split into three parts: a first panel discussion, a presentation of market research, and a second panel discussion. It opens with a segment on 'Youth and Sustainable Development.'
Event moderator Vladyslav Antypov has opened the first 'panel' by saying that everyone understands sustainable development is great, but not everyone understands what the alternative to it actually looks like, describing that alternative as a kind of 'revolutionary,' extensive development, where you get something very quickly, but things end up worse than they were at the start.
Antypov has described sustainable development as gradual growth, saying it might not come as fast as you'd like, but that it means doing something for the future, adding that it felt symbolic to open their year with an event specifically for young people, since youth is about the future, and sustainable development is about the future too, joking that they'd managed to be original by combining the two.
How well the audience actually understands sustainable development becomes clear right from the start. The event's host and ASDE chairwoman, Alina Sokolenko, asks the audience, students in particular, what exactly sustainable development even is. The room falls silent — though that won't stop several dozen newly informed people from leaving the room a few hours later.
During the discussion, the panel looks at what worries Ukrainian teenagers most. According to research by Viktoriia Demidova, a UNDP Ukraine manager, the top three concerns are health (42% of respondents), financial situation (31%), and physical safety (26%).
Two main questions come up: whether sustainable development exists in Ukraine at all, and how young people can take part in it. Alina Sokolenko notes early on that she likes talking about geopolitics and the role of sustainable development in the context of international cooperation.
Sokolenko has said that if Ukraine wants to be an equal partner to the international community, it needs to match not just moral values but also its economy, which has to be built on the right foundations, and that those foundations are exactly what sustainable development provides, says Alina in a comment for DeTalks.
Meanwhile, Svitlana Sushko, head of the reform support office at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and Iryna Shumik, director general of the vocational education directorate at the Ministry of Education, both note their ministries' interest in sustainable development, which brings together environmental responsibility, inclusivity, and youth engagement.
On the topic of 'networking': Inna Zakharchuk, senior HR business partner at MHP, explains that working with young people is, for the company, part of its personnel management and recruitment system, as stated on ASDE's page. According to her, in 2021, MHP brought around 1,600 students into the company, 850 of whom continued working there.
Inna Dobrovolska, CEO of Ahead International Group, has also noted that her company doesn't know the problem of a 'staffing shortage,' and has actually tripled in size since the start of the full-scale war. 30% of her employees are teenagers between 18 and 25, whom, she says, come from a proactive generation of young people.
Dobrovolska has closed by saying that if even one of her words, one phrase, one message today sticks with even a single person in the room, and someone in this hall takes it with them, then she considers her mission accomplished.
After the first 'panel,' a half-hour 'coffee break' begins. Following the tradition of major conferences and official events, every participant is offered a set of light snacks and coffee. The oval hall mentioned earlier fills with voices, and its white, futuristic tables are surrounded by forum attendees hungry for 'networking.' The tasty snacks add to the relaxed atmosphere and conversation, as people get acquainted and share contacts, and, most importantly, the very reason everyone gathered here — experience.
The second panel discussion is titled 'How Young People Are Rewriting the Rules of the Game.' Student self-governance had already come up during the first 'panel,' when one attendee asked how to motivate students to form joint groups, in civic organizations, for instance. Maryna Kobylynska, founder of the Youth Council under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded that her experience working with youth structures proves that young people are a driving force, capable of more than they're given credit for.
Like any promising new beginning, the youth movement also needs support from the state. Vadym Kirov, head of the Youth Council under the Ministry of Economy, talks about the state's youth development programs and how his team works to expand them, in order to boost the economic capacity of the country's young population.
Kirov has described their role as a kind of advocate, one that goes to the ministry and says, 'look, we've talked to, say, a hundred young people, and here's the problem they're facing,' explaining that this is how they gather information and pass it up to higher authorities, Vadym has added.
All-Ukrainian Youth Forum on Sustainable Development: Takeaways
Mykola Bezkrovnyi, president of the NGO Ukrainian Students for Freedom, has added that a high level of bureaucracy slows down many processes involving students. He also brought up the topic of burnout among young people.
Bezkrovnyi has described how youth organizations and NGOs treat it as a given that one person alone can pull off a big project, calling that great, but noting that afterward, that same person can end up unable to leave the house for weeks, especially when they don't process it with others, saying they're pushing the narrative that it's okay to rest, and that this is something that needs to be actively worked on.
At the end of the discussions, host Alina Sokolenko has stressed that there's no need to look for success 'elsewhere' when you can build it for yourself 'right here.'
Sokolenko has said there's no need to wait for someone else to do something for you, that you have to go out and look for it yourself, adding that strong engagement, both online and offline, shows just how active young people really are, and that the future of the country rests only in their own hands.