Bolster skilling

Adolescents (children aged 10–19) grow up in a transforming world. Technology, migration, climate change, and conflict are reshaping society, forcing people across the globe to adapt to unexpected changes in their lives and work (UNICEF). To keep up, adolescents must seize opportunities and confront challenges. They need education and skills to become lifelong learners, secure, productive work, make informed decisions, and positively engage in their communities. It is the most significant global challenge to preparing adolescents for the modern employment market. UNICEF understands that concerted investment and coordination to strengthen education systems are needed. All adolescents, especially the most marginalized, can acquire skills that help them fulfill their potential. Transferable skills are one of such significant areas to be focused on.

Transferable skills: Also called "life skills," "twenty-first-century skills," "soft skills," or "socio-emotional skills," these allow young people to become agile learners and global citizens equipped to navigate personal, social, academic, and economic challenges. Transferable skills also help young people affected by crisis cope with trauma and build resilience. They include problem-solving, negotiation, managing emotions, empathy, and communication.

The 21st century is often described as an age of uncertainty and ambiguity with unprecedented challenges. New technologies and digital media are facilitating imagination and inventiveness. However, there are also challenges such as rapid urbanization, significant disruptions in employment opportunities, and lack of quality education. Contrary to the pessimistic views of youth being unmotivated, feeling entitled, and disruptive, we need to see the tremendous potential in flourishing our youth. Adolescence is a crucial phase of life to be relished. It is a time of discovery, finding meaning, and developing independence. Youth everywhere seek relevance and the right and space to discover, fail, and be respected. They want their voices to be heard and desire to contribute. The youths are valuable people and outstanding citizens who bring fresh ideas, knowledge, and learning. However, they often lack opportunities and are given more of the same. How can we create more space, time, pathways, and positive learning experiences for them? The present camp proposes to address this concern.
Bolster Foundation understands that we need an approach characterized by big picture thinking, fostering imagination and inquiry, and building grit through social-emotional learning and cultivating resilience. We need to prepare adolescents with ways of thinking beyond analytical thinking. It implies the design of tasks where education has purposeful connections to the world beyond the classroom and provides for different needs and interests of the learners. We advocate the use of real-world problems. Wherein solving a problem, students need to get the facts of the bigger picture and inter-related issues before going into the analytical and logical reasoning.