New pieces of training for young people during emergencies, named ‘I Support My Friends’, were launched in July 2021. This helps reduce the stresses for children and adolescents who are abundant in knowledge and skills but lack productivity. This is done based on the PFA (Psychological First Aid) principles and led to a huge success. It’s been piloted in Japan, Mongolia, Turkey and Jordan. This comes up with a fantastic result in turns.

The programme is overall a combined package of WHO, Save the Children. UNICEF and MHPSS Collaborative. When a survey was conducted in Japan about the training session, the feedback was really good. A 15-year-old child told that ‘I thought it was only for professionals which might be difficult. But I enjoyed listening and gathering knowledge from friends.’ Young minds are the building environment of tomorrow. Spreading knowledge to boost up their skills is always mandatory and shouldn’t be forceful.

The talents who plan to move forward with the pieces of training are 9 – 17 years old. This has four components: a guide on theory and implementation, training manuals, a children’s workbook, and a manual useful for facilitators training. The parts explaining how to monitor and evaluate the processes based on different criteria are also added to it. This can make the true nature of a child or adolescent to good at their skills and knowledge.

Dr Ali Schafer, the WHO lead of the project, told that young people in adolescents or younger children are keen to observe and identify their friends who are affected by distressing events nevertheless of the environment or issue. So, finding the right children to support others can gain various benefits to move forward in crucial circumstances.

For the information, this training can be conducted in a partnership or straight away by an organization like schools, government institutes, community organizations, etc. While collaborating with the local institutions or networks, increases the programme to reach among people vibrantly. On the other hand, this training can also be conducted as integration with existing programmes or training for health education, disaster management, child protection, education, life skill training, etc. Getting the right path to spread the knowledge awakens the inner capability point of every young talent who are reluctant to come forward.

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