On the afternoon of August 5, the 2018 (2nd) Public Benefit International Challenge for Youth (PBIC), which lasted for two months, came to an end at the Zayed Center for Arabic Language and Islamic Studies of Beijing Foreign Studies University. In the finale, the three teams, Solar Heart, One World # One Team, and Phytoman respectively won the champion, the second place and the third. PBIC was established in 2017 as a response to“no hunger, good health, quality education, gender equality”of UN Sustainable Development Goals. It encourages young people to be creative, propose solutions and design public welfare projects, to “support African women and children affected by poverty and AIDS”.
PBIC is held for junior high school students and senior high school students. 2018 PBIC was officially launched on June 7th and was divided into preliminary contest, plan book submission, voting, final, etc. Fifty-two teams participated. At the finale, the judges gave scores based on the team's innovation, the enforceability and sustainability of their project, and their on-site performance. In the end, according to the overall scores of the intermediary heat, the scores given by judges and voting in the final, the top 10 rankings and top three runners-up were born.
After the finale, the launching ceremony of “China-Africa Hand in Hand: Chinese Youth Campaign for Public Benefit in Africa” project was held. Representatives of African Embassies and African students in China were invited to witness this important moment together with the top 10 teams. This project is to guide and encourage Chinese youth to care about the development of Africa and African public welfare, and to promote China-Africa humanities exchanges.
2018 PBIC was based on the theme of “Innovation and Creation for Africa”. It was co-sponsored by the China-Africa Business Council and China Social Assistance Foundation, and co-organized by the International Business School and the Alumni Association of Beijing Foreign Studies University. As a platform for the display and incubation of international public welfare projects in Africa, since its first organization in 2017, a total of 207 young people from 46 teams participated. The participants and volunteer families raised more than 380,000 RMB, of which the "Loving Music Classroom" project was launched in Malawi in February this year. The "Vaccine Ice Bucket" project and the "One Football Field" project will also be launched in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia in the second half of 2018. For PBIC this year, the organizers will select practical projects and actively support their enforcement in Africa as soon as possible in 2018.
