NEWS
Empowering Young Leaders: ECCO Foundation Establishes GerakDampak Academy to Prevent Child Marriage
Child marriage remains a complex social challenge that severely impacts youth development, education, and equality in West Nusa Tenggara. To directly address this issue at a systemic level, ECCO Foundation teamed up with the Indika Foundation under their Impact Collaboration initiative to launch the GerakDampak Academy.
The GerakDampak Academy is an intensive youth leadership and social action incubator. The program is specifically structured to enhance critical thinking, refine leadership mindsets, and give students the project management tools needed to design and execute real-world social interventions within their home communities.
Cultivating Youth-Led Social Action Plans
The core philosophy of the GerakDampak Academy is that young people are not just future leaders—they are capable of executing highly professional social change right now. The academy walked students through a rigorous process of identifying societal root causes, practicing peaceful advocacy, and deploying measurable community projects.
This year, the entire academy focused its energy on a singular, vital mission: preventing child marriage across NTB.
Quantifiable Milestones and Community Impact
The months-long academy resulted in widespread, measurable reach across the province, shifting mindsets among both students and village residents:
Impact Metric | Program Achievement Data |
|---|---|
Total Student Reach | 82 young leaders trained across 20 regional schools in NTB |
Critical Thinking Output | 70 comprehensive research essays written analyzing regional social issues |
Selected Innovators | 27 elite participants selected to move into advanced project implementation |
Direct Interventions | 5 custom social action plans designed and fully deployed to prevent child marriage |
Total Beneficiaries | Approximately 400 community members directly reached by youth-led field campaigns |
By trusting young people to lead the conversation around reproductive rights, educational continuity, and child protection laws, ECCO Foundation is successfully creating an active shield against early child marriage, driven by the very generation it impacts most.