The Covid-19 might not imposed a serious death threat but the impact of Covid-19 should not be taken lightly. It has disrupted the lives of millions of individuals, societies as well as businesses.
Young people are amongst those impacted most by the current crisis in terms of mental and physical health, learning and professional development, civic engagement and respect for their rights – on all these fronts young people are also facing important disruptions and changes.
First of all, the global pandemic is having an unprecedented impact on education systems all over the world. With the closure of schools and universities to curb the spread of Covid-19, our existing education system are not prepared for online teaching. As a result, the education for students of higher education are hugely disrupted.
There are so many resources out there, though, it can be overwhelming for teachers and families who are now in the role of facilitating or navigating online classes and assignments with their students and children.
As most teachers comes from the older generation, most of them are not IT savvy, have low adaptability, nor do they understand how technology such as webinar, live streaming and social media are able to help the continuation of education for their students.
Lucky for them, over the past month, our Gen Y club members have supported teachers to overcome this technology gap by advising on what software or mobile applications that can be used to streamline lessons and tutorials.
We divide the teaching process into 2 subgroups, high tech and low tech. High tech groups are catered to groups of students and teachers that have access to high speed internet. High tech groups utilizes Google Meet, Skype, Zoom Video to provide lessons and contents to students via live streaming.
Live streaming enables students to participate in QnA sessions as well.
For the low tech group, this group caters to students who lack access to high speed internet. Teachers are advised to scan workbooks via phone camera, and upload the documents to the cloud such as Google Drive. Students will be able to consume the materials after downloading.
Educators are also encouraged to build student groups on social media such as Facebook, Whatsapp, or Telegram to provide announcement and also encourage discussion among students on the subjects.
We guide and assist educators via TeamViewer as it is much easier for them to understand.
The increase in unemployment as a result of COVID-19 is also expected to increase the rates of unemployment in the aftermath of the 2009 global financial crisis. Based on the 2009 experience, without targeted policy intervention, it is likely that youth will again be disproportionately affected by a global recession, with a higher percentage of young people being unemployed compared to adults, and a slower uptake of employment by young people during the recovery. In light of the threat to the livelihoods of many youth, it is crucial that measures to ease the financial impacts on households are comprehensive and sufficient to bridge the gap resulting from loss of earnings.
With businesses operation suspended, a majority of working adults are forced to take unpaid leave. The loss of income creates a financial stress and mental turmoil for breadwinner of the family.
We provide advise and offer solutions to mitigate the temporary loss of income.
Examples of advice given are:
"We believe in giving first, before receiving."
Example of residents that has taken action and become homepreneur. XD
The sudden surge Covid-19 cases has crippled the workforce in the medical communities. Hospitals are constantly bombarded with new cases. We appreciate all the work and effort done by the frontliners. Even though we are not medical frontliners, we as a thoughtful citizen could also play a part in helping the frontliners.
The "StayAtHome" and "WorkFromHome" initiatives does not imply that we should be living a sedentary lifestyle. We should remain physically active by doing home workouts.
A sound mind in a sound body
Home workouts are simple (they don't require equipments) and require little time, probably less than 30 minutes a day. There are various home workouts such as High Intensity Interval Training (HiiT) for young adults, and QiGong, Tai Chi, Salsa dancing option as well.
We are constantly preaching and advocating families, friends, basically everyone the importance of keeping ourselves healthy during this Covid-19 pandemic.
By keeping ourselves healthy, we reduce the risk of us falling sick and the need to visit doctors or hospitals. This will indirectly allows the frontliners to focus on what matters most at the moment: containing Covid-19.
The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in severe economic and social impacts around the world. Everyone's life has been disrupted and many are now at risk of being left behind in education, economic opportunities, and not forgetting health and wellbeing.
We might not be medical frontliners, but each of us are playing an equally significant role here in helping curbing and eliminating Covid-19.
The Covid-19 is not the end for everyone. With the right mindset and attitude, we should learn from such experience and grow from it.
Feel free to reach out to us if you need help or advice to get through this pandemic.
PS: We are forever grateful to all the companies that offer assistance in various forms such as software (Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Loom), learning materials (Udemy, Coursera, Khan Academy) - these are not exhaustive list.
UPDATE: we received news that one of our member's teacher just committed suicide due to depression from extended stay at home. May he rest in peace. God bless his soul.
Nevertheless, this just further reinforce our belief that we could do much to help everyone in this dire situation.
Please tell your families and friends about us, and if you do happen to know someone who needs help, do not hesitate to let us know so we can reach out to them as well.
