Our first TedTalk: the beginnings of our idea

For our next task, our team was assigned with writing and recording a TedTalk about our cause. This task excited us and helped us come in contact with something we had never done before. The new experience made us all the more creative and as people who were personally affected by Youth Unemployment, it wasn’t hard for us to begin brainstorming, collecting information and structuring our talk.

The first object in our itinerary was to gather information regarding Youth Unemployment. We searched through the web for data we could use, and we were horrified with the results that came up: ⅔ of youth are unemployed, young people are seen as either inexperienced or on the contrary, overqualified for positions, 20% of young people are not in employment, education or training and the numbers of youth unemployment in Europe are on the rise.

Seeing these results made us realize how important our topic was and how much an answer needed to be given to all of youth’s questions. Decent work conditions, a safe work environment and most importantly adequate job positions were some of the things we considered to be the most important.

Our main objective was to inform but inspire at the same time. To achieve this, we focused on finding a silver lining, a way to show to our audience that they were not alone, but actually their experience was shared with hundreds, if not millions of other young people. We decided that the best way to achieve this was to share our very own experience with choosing our academic paths and the trials and tribulations we faced. Most importantly, we wanted the youth watching to know that their feelings of self doubt and fear were valid, because we were feeling the exact same way!

Finally, after much deliberation and talk within our team, we decided to showcase some targeted solutions we came up with. These simple steps could make all the difference in our field, in our personal opinion. These were: to ensure a smoother transition from education to the workplace and to enforce laws that demand paid internships in order for the youth to acquire the much needed ‘experience’ we always seem to lack.

Alone Together Team members: GeorgiannaChondrou, Angeliki Kyriazi, Angeliki Valeri, Despoina Fragou, Konstantina Papanikolaou

Professor: Ms. Betty Tsakarestou