Millennials shed light on finding work during youth unemployment crisis

WASHINGTON— To address rising global youth unemployment rates, a digital media project supported by RTI International has allowed millennials worldwide to share their experiences with employment and entrepreneurship. The best 35 stories from this initiative, called YouthVoices, now have been selected for publication.

“Ambitions Interrupted: 35 Dream Jobs” spotlights youth who are not giving up their career aspirations despite challenges faced finding employment. Their stories show resilience and personal accomplishments along the path from education to employment. 

Currently, nearly 71 million youth ages 15 to 24 are estimated to be looking for work but unable to find it.

The YouthVoices initiative launched in March 2016 in partnership with The GroundTruth Project, RTI, the Global Center for Youth Employment and The Huffington Post. Youth were asked to answer the question “What is your dream job? What’s standing in your way?” by using multimedia and posting to the YouthVoices platform.

Among the submissions, 35 youth from around the world were selected by a panel of judges. These millennials are aspiring to become engineers, journalists, doctors, diplomats and farmers.

GroundTruth Project will help these 35 youth develop their submissions for publications with GroundTruth publishers like The Atlantic, ABC News/Fusion, The Huffington Post, PRI’s The World and PBS NewsHour.

Millennials are invited to share their own story and thoughts on youth unemployment on the YouthVoices platform.