PRODIGY | British Council

PRODIGY has developed the knowledge and skills of 801 young people to engage the wider community through volunteer activities including youth club activities, theatre performances, internships with local government, community radio programs and public dialogues, creating platforms and channels to ensure that the wider community has access to government information. These 801 young people (aged 18 to 30, 50% female) have been given the skills to assess whether local government bodies are fulfilling their commitments and responding to citizens’ needs. Stressing the need for social inclusivity and equal participation, the focus in PRODIGY is on women, the poor and marginalised groups.

The 801 trained young people have been promoting civic participation and advocating the principles of integrity, accountability, transparency, inclusivity at the heart of good governance in its focus areas of 25 Union Parishads (rural) and wards (urban) across three divisions in Bangladesh.

The three strands of PRODIGY are:

Knowledge Development on Accountability, Transparency and Inclusivity and Grant Management

Building on current learning and experience, PRODIGY team including consortium partners have reviewed and refined existing training modules to develop high-quality training modules for PRODIGY youth leaders on 1. Youth Leadership. 2. Accountability, Transparency and Inclusivity, and 3. Pluralism and social harmony. Master trainers (MTs) have been selected and trained by the sector experts on the newly developed training modules. Selected 540 youth participants of PRODIGY across 3 Divisions have been trained by the MTs on Youth Leadership; Accountability, Transparency, Inclusivity; and Grant Management. These young people are now acting as agents to increase peaceful civic participation in all possible channels of local governance.

Community Engagement

The trained 801 youth leaders of PRODIGY have been implementing 115 community-based Social Action Projects to create awareness among community people on their civic rights and encourage them to participate in local government’s activities as well as avail various services from the local government. It is also evident that the increased civic participation at the local governance is also demanding for more transparent and accountable local government in all PRODIGY areas.

Recognition and Demonstration of Positive Youth Engagement

PRODIGY participants celebrated International Youth day on 12 August 2017 in all 25 locations of the project involving more than 5000 young people along with representatives from local government, Department of Youth Development (DYD), civil society, electronic and print media personnel. PRODIGY National Youth Summit also took place on 12 March 2016 to recognise and showcase the brilliant work that PRODIGY youth leaders are doing through their Social Action Projects in all PRODIGY locations. Participated by 500 youth leaders of PRODIGY, the summit also brought various stakeholders including policy makers, media, and representatives of other like minded organizations to a common platform to acknowledge PRODIGY youth leaders’ initiatives and achievements.