Young people have been affected by the secondary impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, with serious consequences for mental health and well-being. The youths in low-income countries are especially vulnerable to economic hardship and disrupted education, and least likely to receive adequate psychosocial care.
As part of the Youth Excel implementation research activity, The Youth Cafe will conduct a 6-month project activity that is seeking to equip young people with key media literacy skills: critical thinking, fact-checking, online safety, social media verification, and quality assessment of online information and their sources through a dedicated handbook.
and campaigns;
Engaging young people in the fight against corruption and the closing civic space. With the partnership of Ford Foundation, we are building the power of young people to impact government policies, uphold their rights, and fight against corruption and closing civic space, by strengthening evidence-based advocacy for accountability, critical thinking and media skills, anti-corruption media contest, and collaboration among state and youth organizations;
The Youth Cafe recently made and entered into a Memorandum of Understanding agreement with GiveDirectly Inc., thereby forming a partnership between the two organizations. The purpose of this Unconditional COVID-19 Cash Transfer Program partnership is to contribute to enhanced economic empowerment within identified locations of Nairobi and ultimate eradication of poverty which in turn will positively impact the lives of the beneficiaries and communities. This program focuses on the disbursement of emergency grants (cash grants) by GiveDirectly to people mainly living in informal settlements in Kenya in which The Youth Café currently works. As a result of this partnership, thousands of youths have been able to benefit from this program where they each received a monthly disbursement of $30 for period of 4 months.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has selected IREX, The Youth Cafe and our consortium to implement the YouthPower Youth Excel program. This global program will empower young people and youth organizations to use implementation research to strengthen local, national, and global development solutions.
This project has trained 1,200 young people from selected universities and communities on digital storytelling for empowered voices. Community Media for Youth (CM4Y) is a community-based transformative learning partnership that seeks to empower marginalised communities and groups in Kenya through the development of active community media partnerships, knowledge sharing and training. The project aims to utilise information, media and communications technology to build community capacity and empower the voices of the disenfranchised. Established 6years ago, CM4Y continues to expand through active collaboration with our partners, CM4Y explores ways in which community radio and media can be made accessible to diverse Kenyan communities so they may harness the benefits of the digital age.
Voice Africa's Future (VAF) was an agenda2030 youth initiative of The Youth Cafe in partnership with African Monitor running in 10 African countries through partner organizations to ensure that SDGs implementation process is sustainable, specific, measurable and visible for the next 30 years and beyond. VAF started in 2012 as a post2015 youth consultation initiative building up to the adoption of SDGs. VAF collected over 77,000 youth aspirations called “KeyAsks” for the new development framework. These asks fed into the formulation of national development plans and SDGs country drafts informing the regional discussions and the SDGs open working group.
By leveraging innovation and new technology The Youth Cafe with the partnership support of UN-Habitat, University of Fraser Valley, Eliademy and a network of youth organizations in Africa developed Eminus Academy to address the need for an inclusive, affordable, and adaptable educational platform. Eminus Academy is a unique program which uses online e-learning courses as a platform. By integrating technology, internet based curriculum, and applied empirical learning, a virtual global classroom using state of the art digital media provides free, non-formal education to youth that do not have access to education due to a number of barriers.
Building on national constitutions, Regional Economic Communities, National Youth Policies, Youth Charters, and The United Nations World Program on Youth and voices of thousands for young , Organizing Committee of the Coalition for Youth Manifesto of over 62 youth organizations and networks unveiled a foundational document to frame the youth development agenda.
Through a series of consultations with youth groups across the country, alongside expert-led and youth-moderated Twitter chat sessions and short mobile-based messages, the project secretariat canvassed the views of the youth for the Manifesto. The audiences for the consultations represented the full diversity of youths. The objective of The Youth Cafe with this is to uphold the values of a democratic state in order to provide a platform worthy of forming part of the central political agenda.
