PLEIKU CITY, Vietnam – April 23, 2025

As part of the recently launched Empowering Youth for Livable Cities program, two co-creation workshops were hosted by the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) and AIP Foundation. The objective of the two workshops was to collect real-time feedback from youth and local government from the first phase of the program (AI&Me: Empowering Youth for Safer Roads) and to ensure participants are actively involved in the development process of the digital tools of the new program, while also ensuring that the feedback gathered is actionable.

The first workshop was focused on the co-creation of the Citizen Portal with local authorities of 3 provinces (Quang Ngai, Vinh Long, Gia Lai) and school representatives of Gia Lai Province. The aim of the workshop was to discuss and agree on basic functionalities and structure for the Citizen Portal to understand needs and potential impact for the project data and materials hubs called Citizen Portal, which contributes to the tool upgrade. The objective of the Portal is to collate all the information gathered and produced by the project in a portal and give access to community members, particularly government stakeholders. During the workshop, the government stakeholders actively participated in the group discussions and contributed with useful feedback including on how the Citizen Portal can be promoted to the community and how it should display updated information on school zone modifications and upgrades.

Nothing about youth, without youth:

The second workshop was focused on the previously created Youth Engagement App (YEA) and featured a consultation with local youth on how the app can be upgraded. The workshop included a discussion on to make the YEA functionalities are more youth-friendly, intuitive, engaging, and meets their needs. Key highlights from the workshop included students actively and openly sharing their ideas and feedback on the app and students redesigned the interface of some of the features by creatively by drawing and painting the mock-ups. iRAP will use these to update the app, ensuring youth voices are empowered.

In addition to the workshops, AIP Foundation in collaboration with the Gia Lai authorities, organized a visit to Huynh Thuc Khang High School and Nguyen Hue Secondary School for local authorities from new provinces of the program, to learn and share best practices from the successful implementation and improvements made through impact of the first phase of the AI&Me program.

Empowering Youth for Livable Cities program:

The Empowering Youth for Livable Cities program harnesses the power of youth and empowers youth to drive positive changes in the development of their communities and ensure their voices are not just heard but are actively contributing to shaping their future. It also encourages policy-makers in Vietnam to meaningfully engage with young leaders at all stages and levels of policy and decision making. The program will run throughout Vietnam from 2024 to 2027 and is a collaborative effort between AIP Foundation and its key partners, Fondation Botnar, FIA Foundation, the International Road Assessment Program (iRAP), and YOURS – Youth for Road Safety.