Establishing an effective network of youth groups would require a significant amount of effort in terms of bringing together parent organizations and representatives from youth groups to work together. Through establishing a data management system for youth networks/volunteers in Bhutan, the Bhutan Youth Development Fund works towards empowering and providing common platforms for youth organizations to facilitate the formation of youth groups and come together to provide opportunities and platforms for growth and overall wellbeing of Youth.

Additionally, the COVID-19 response needs to consider adolescents as a specific group who will experience the disease spread and control measures such as lockdowns differently, requiring differential responses across sectors for adolescents. Their age, puberty, physical and mental transitions, coupled with the diverse social, political and economic realities they face in different national and sub-national contexts in South Asia, will require specific attention, investment and participatory planning. Disruption of adolescents’ daily routines in education, training, employment, leisure and entertainment, friendship circles, and so on mean that young people will go through anxiety and mental stress with the absence of the habitual forms of support. Some marginalized groups for whom non-formal education centers and youth and children’s clubs were regular forms of support will also feel the impact of the closure of these spaces as they provide critical opportunities for interaction, and informal education and learning. This will be coupled with lack of food and nutrition, loss of daily income and wages and associated insecurities among the most marginalized.