Despite the mental weight of growing up during a pandemic, thy.self used the UK quarantine period to host a digital skills campaign to get young people the access to creative careers in a time that is unsure for us all and help to teach 'on the job' training to resilient youths in the era of COVID-19 and beyond, which happens to threaten the continuity of skills development.

For thy.self Youth Skill Day in July 2020, thy.self offered three young people a 'day in the life' experience as a freelance creative and a week-long, hands-on, work experience placement with three disruptive brands across FMCG, Creative Consulting and Digital Design industries where the randomly chosen individuals had access to thy.self as a brand and agency behind the scenes, day to day view of our work and our network by working with us (remotely) and preparing to answer confidential briefs set by the brands themselves. The chosen cohorts were rewarded with workshops, mentoring with brand leaders/ professionals and debriefing with one day worth of self-care delivered through a bespoke thy.self wellness hamper supported by Puma.

Today, there are 1.2 billion young people aged 15 to 24 years, accounting for 16 per cent of the global population.

The active engagement of youth everywhere is central to achieving a sustainable, inclusive and stable future, however, young people are almost three times more likely to be unemployed than adults and continuously exposed to lower quality of jobs, greater labor market inequalities, and longer and more insecure school-to-work transitions. In addition, women are more likely to be underemployed and under-paid, and to undertake part-time jobs or work under temporary contracts.

With this campaign, thy.self and our partners pledge to do our part of giving young people access and awareness to the world of creative working and using our extensive network of professionals of varied discipline to make a small change for Youth Skill Day 2020.