TEHRAN (Iran News) –Enhanced Mental Health, and Psychosocial Support Services (MHPSS) provided through a skill-building workshop by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) aimed to facilitate young people’s employability.

This workshop was held from September 9 to 11 in cooperation with the Ministry of Sports and Youth.

Via improved skill building and MHPSS, the process of transition from learning to earning generation will be facilitated for some 600 teenagers and young people aged 15-24 years.

This workshop was funded by the Netherlands and aimed to expand the Adolescent and Youth Empowerment and Wellbeing Program.

It empowers the youth and facilitates their access to decent job opportunities.

In this workshop, 20 technical staff from 11 selected non-governmental organizations (NGOs) gathered together with six representatives of teenagers and young people.

The main goal of the workshop was to increase the capacity of NGOs to effectively implement the Adolescent and Youth Empowerment and Employability Program.

This initiative builds upon the success of pilot programs in Kermanshah and Isfahan in 2021.

In addition to granting adolescents and youth access to technical and vocational training and innovative skills-building, it connects these young individuals with entrepreneurship programs in the private sector, facilitating a seamless transition from learning to earning, the UNICEF website announced in a press release on September 21.

The next steps will include the expansion of support programs by UNICEF and the Ministry of Sports and Youth in other regions of the country.

The Two Adolescent and Youth Empowerment and Employability Centers have made a significant impact on the growth and prosperity of young individuals.

Since their establishment in 2021, they have provided their services to more than 1,395 young people.

With the recent capacity-building workshop, the program is poised to make an even greater difference in the lives of adolescents and youth across Iran, the report added.

UNICEF services

In September, UNICEF installed some fabricated classrooms and distributed hygiene and baby kits among people in the earthquake-affected city of Khoy in collaboration with the ministries of education and health.

Four schools in Khoy, affected by the earthquake, were equipped with new educational spaces. Three of these schools are located in inaccessible villages and the fourth one is in Khoy.

UNICEF, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, facilitated the process of purchasing, delivering, installing, and equipping these prefabricated classrooms to ensure the access of earthquake-affected children to quality education.

In the next step, UNICEF plans to rehabilitate 12 schools in earthquake-affected, hard-to-reach villages in Khoy County to enhance the learning environment and opportunities for children, the UNICEF website announced in a press release on September 5.

Meanwhile, families received health packages in 15 earthquake-affected villages of Khoy. UNICEF prepared and presented these packages in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Medical Education to ensure children and families access the vital support to be healthy.

In August, UNICEF) held a training workshop named “Wash Bottleneck Analysis Tool” (WASHBAT) in Tehran aimed to enhance Iranian children’s access to safe and sanitary water throughout the country.

The three-day event was held from August 14 -16 in cooperation with the Ministry of Energy.

WASHBAT, a tool developed by UNICEF and global partner organizations, serves as a valuable approach for assessing and analyzing the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) situation in a country. It helps in identifying challenges, suggesting solutions, prioritizing interventions, and developing an action plan to address these challenges, the UNICEF website announced in a press release on August 24.

UNICEF announced that it had procured a set of new diagnostic lab equipment to enhance healthcare services for vulnerable children and families in a number of provinces across Iran.

The advanced technological equipment and standard laboratory tools procured upon the request of the Ministry of Health will improve the precision and quality of diagnostic and treatment health services offered to children and their families, particularly for respiratory and gastrointestinal infections.

The equipment was provided to the Ministry of Health reference labs in six selected provinces with a high number of vulnerable populations, namely Sistan-Baluchestan, Kordestan, Yazd, South Khorasan, Hormozgan, and Tehran.

Respiratory and gastrointestinal infections pose significant threats to children resulting in elevated rates of mortality, a situation exacerbated among refugee children with compromised health conditions, the report added.

By facilitating swift disease diagnosis and timely intervention, this initiative aims to curtail these outcomes and simultaneously curb the inappropriate or excessive use of antibiotics.