A few things keep me up at night, but at the top of the list is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people, especially young women. Through my work, volunteering and participation in mentorship programs, I speak with young people across the country every week. They share their hopes, their fears and also their frustrations that their needs are not being considered in pandemic policy-making. I worry that if we don’t take the right steps now, young people will become a “lockdown generation” with limited opportunities to realize their full potential.

So how do we prevent that from happening?