Establish a Youth Conservation Corps in Bangladesh
The Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) engages marginalized and vulnerable youth and women as environmental stewards in Bangladesh. The program upskills the youth of Bandarban and Cox’s Bazar districts through five months of residential training, and a one-month internship, to strengthen leadership, environmental stewardship, and suitable employment skills. The goal of the YCC program is to increase sustainable livelihood opportunities for the youth and provide mentorship to the youth networks to ensure that natural resources are continued to be conserved within communities.
Motto: Engage, Learn, Serve, Lead
Vision: Vibrant, healthy, and skilled youth acting in their communities to conserve natural resources and earn a sustainable living.
Mission: Build skill and leadership of youth to empower and improve livelihoods and be environmental stewards in their communities through experiential learning.
Target Participants:
YCC Bangladesh engages school-dropped-out underprivileged Bangladeshi youths aged between 18 and 24 years, who have not received any skills training before. The program ensures the participation of women in all stages of the training. The targeted areas for the YCC participants are Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban districts.
Gender integration in YCC
YCC included a module on gender equality and principles of gender equity in the training curriculum. YCC promotes and helps the participation of young women in the YCC Youth Network interventions, internships, job fairs, event celebration initiatives, jobs, and entrepreneurship. YCC ensures the participation of at least 40% female trainees in every cohort.
Employment status of the trainees
YCC 1st and 2nd cohorts finished their training in January and July 2022, respectively. 64% of YCC graduates are currently employed (as of September 2022). The graduates are working in the nurseries (seedlings production), mushroom cultivation, driving, tailoring, and NGO sectors.
More Program Activities

Establish a Youth Conservation Corps in Bangladesh
The Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) engages marginalized and vulnerable youth and women as environmental stewards in Bangladesh. The program upskills the youth of Bandarban and Cox’s Bazar districts through five months of residential training, and a one-month internship, to strengthen leadership, environmental stewardship, and suitable employment skills. The goal of the YCC program is to increase sustainable livelihood opportunities for the youth and provide mentorship to the youth ne...
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Strengthening community capacity and promoting public participation
Compass Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT-FLR) is a pilot initiative to demonstrate ways to enhance the capacity of the indigenous population and local government institutions by restoring forest landscapes in a participatory process. It responds to the national commitment to the Bonn Challenge of restoration. The approach is a locally-led adaptation by – 1) improving land management, 2) governance of local hill forest resources, 3) reducing risks of ch...
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Increase technical cooperation on forest and ecosystem management
Objective:
Partnering with Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD), this component focuses on strengthening technical capacity of officials at various level to perform their duties in relation to monitoring and assessment.
The capacity building support of this component is categorized into three broad areas as follows:
Imparting skills of BFD officials to generate spatial data & mapping
This broad training activity focuses on imparting basic and advanced level skills in G...
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Strengthen the capacity of academic and research institutions in natural resource management and resilience
Objective:
The objective of this component is to utilize the science-based technical expertise of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) by fostering the institutional partnership between various Bangladeshi and U.S. universities to contribute to global sustainability and climate-resistant forest management.
To materialize the objective, Compass is supporting the academic and research institutions to empower practitioners and students through science-based technical cooperation on ...
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Promote global exchange of natural resource knowledge and skills
Objective
Promote scholarly and cultural exchange for strengthening the effectiveness of natural resource management through in-person and virtual information exchange, capacity development, and collaboration/networking.
Key activities
• Visiting fellow program on climate and forestry disciplines
• Visiting student program
• Exchange visits for climate and forestry activities
• &nb...
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