How Does The Youth Café Promote Critical Citizenship Among Youth In Kenya?

The Youth Café participated in a series of questions whose thesis purpose is to promote democracy and research the approaches used by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to promote critical citizenship education amongst the youth in Kenya.

The Youth Café initiates approaches towards education, skills, and technology for young people. It creates opportunities for many youths to participate in accountability initiatives and advocacy for political stability and good governance.

The Youth Café trains the youth on civic education driven by result-oriented, evidence-based performance, which informs Our Theory of Change: A Pathway for Action, Sustainability, Results, Learning, and Adoption. These changes include institutional changes, service systems, community norms, partnerships, public will, policies, regulations, service practices, business practices, and issue visibility.

One of our thematic areas is the issue of Governance and Political Inclusion (Accountability). The Youth Café has taken initiatives to develop a digital platform to enhance youth inclusion in accountability and public policy, promoting dialogue with and buy-in from local authorities, local communities, and accountability organizations and capacity building the skills, competencies, knowledge, and confidence of young citizens. 

The latter consists of various sub-activities that focus on youth participation in the electoral processes and directly impact young people through civic education and voter registration training. The adoption of a new constitutional order in 2010 placed inclusivity at the center of governance and decision making, political decision making when enacting legislation, voting, budget making, County planning, and policy issues. Article 10(2)(a) of the Kenyan constitution states that "participation of the people" is one of our country's values and principles of governance, and achieving this requires a strong focus on participatory governance and the multiple aspects of diversity, including youth, women, and persons abled differently. 

Against the background of youth being accustomed to political participation only through political institutions, civil society, and political parties, The Youth Café appreciates the critical role of young people in a democracy. It is part of the Youth Civic and Voter Education project, whose aim is to boost levels of participation in the electoral process of engaging youth across the country ahead of the August 2022 General Elections. The project is implemented through a collaborative effort between the IEBC Youth Coordinating Committee on elections and other youth-led and youth-serving Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to reduce duplication of such interventions among different organizations.

The Youth Café runs programs to promote critical citizenship education to ensure "a transparent, democratic and accountable environment" as a strategic objective of The Youth Cafés work. In actualizing The Youth Cafés thematic area of governance and political inclusion (accountability), we incorporate programs touching on youth participation in the democratic process, most notably the creation and development of the Kenya youth manifesto and civic education programs which seeks to rope in the youth to take an active role in the electoral process. 

The Youth Café, with the partnership of Ford Foundation, is building the power of young people to impact government policies, uphold their rights, and fight against corruption and the 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.

Against the typical background of youth political participation through political institutions, civil society, political parties, The Youth Café appreciates the vital role of young people in a democracy and together with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission's (IEBC) Youth Coordinating Committee (YCC) initiated the Youth Civic and Voter Education project.

This project aims to engage youth across the country to boost levels of their participation in the electoral process ahead of the August 2022 General Elections. As a member of the IEBC Youth Coordinating Committee, The Youth Café seeks to fulfill this by implementing the voter education project through the inculcation of the Youth Civic and Voter Education Comprehensive Action Plan, which outlines the correlated plan of the Youth Coordinating Committee. The strategy details the attributes of different personas spreading across three age categories of young people; 18–24 years old, 25–29 years old, and 30–35 years old. 

It also presents possible responsive messages and communication channels that will deliver messages to the different categories of young people. Proposed interventions align with IEBC's 2022 Elections Operation Plan (EOP). This strategy seeks to enhance young people's participation in the electoral processes as voters, improve the dissemination of voter's education to youth using relevant media, and leverage on the grassroots strengths of The Youth Café members all in all while promoting ownership of the process among young people and building relevant leadership skills, knowledge and ability to participate in the electoral processes.

Youth in the age category 18-24 are largely first-time voters, and The Youth Café mobilizes their registration for voting and active participation through the electoral processes. We employ activities like regular digital activation on social media platforms, organizing concerts, conducting glam and PlayStation activation in institutions of higher learning (informal urban settlements), and organizing sporting tournaments.

We are also organizing a beauty pageant event (Mr. and Mrs. Kura) in all the ten identified regions between 18 to 24 years, carrying out outreach visits to religious institutions, and conducting community dialogues/town hall meetings. To create and disseminate youth-friendly voter education materials and messaging for young people between 18-24 years old, The Youth Café will produce high-quality explainer videos, vox pops, TikTok challenges, infographics, memes, and IEC materials which will be distributed among crowds. Furthermore, we engage community radios, sponsor targeted ads in programs/ YouTube/games apps, and use social media/local influencers for dissemination. We hope to conduct roadshows, conduct campus tours, and work with young artists to compose a campaign song in some parts.

The Youth Cafés approach targets attributes of different age groups to help in reaching out to a specific audience (youth in its many stages) using custom-made solutions. These solutions have enhanced leadership skills, knowledge, and ability to participate in the electoral processes and improved the dissemination of voter education to youths.

This is not to say that we do not meet challenges in implementing our approaches. There is a poor turnout of youth to the registration centers due to voter apathy. According to a report by The Youth Café, the electoral management body has only managed to register 1.5 million young people out of a targeted 6 million to mean that young people present a unique disengaged political constituency, thus the need for a well-coordinated approach to achieving their participation.

Distrust of the IEBC by young people based on past election history. Young people typically do not sufficiently understand their constitutional rights and responsibilities. As a result, many do not feel that they have a role to play in the elections and governance of the nation. In addition, according to a report by The Youth Café, poor and unjust systems have resulted in Kenyan youth feeling detached from the entire system.

Targeting different age groups to create programs for each age group has effectively customized the activities for each, therefore, ensuring that the messages reach the intended target. We aim to improve first-time voters, age group 18-24, who show hesitancy in voter registration through the dissemination of storytelling videos that highlight the importance of voting and the repercussions of not taking part in electoral processes.

Kenya Youth Manifesto 2017 is a document representing the needs and wants of young people, their recommendations, and ideas for policies and programs that address their challenges. These key policy messages include responding to youth issues as a heterogeneous group, improving youth investment so that they acquire appropriate resources, improving public support and building partnerships, and strengthening institutional capacities. The Youth Manifesto seeks to put youth issues on the national development agenda.

The Elections Operations Plan (EOP) details the legal, institutional, and operational frameworks. The EOP establishes key election priorities, relationships, dependencies, and integrated time frames. The plan also provides a robust monitoring framework that enables review of progress made in implementation, achievement of milestones, and timely rectification of any lack. The plan is alive because there are inherent risks associated with the conduct of elections. It, therefore, provides for a risk management framework that allows for continuous risk assessment and mitigation.

The IEBC Strategic Plan has goals and objectives to be realized over the 2020-2024 period. The plan considers the dynamic nature of the electoral environment as well as the expectations of Kenyans. The plan is anchored on six key result areas, i.e., Strengthening the corporate governance, Strengthening the legal framework, Effective conduct of elections, Enhanced public outreach, Equitable representation, Strengthening strategic operations of the Commission.

The process of preparing the Strategic Plan was participatory and involved constituencies, counties, and national level structures of the Commission. It was implemented through the organizational structure of the IEBC, with each unit playing an active role in achieving the mission of the Commission.

The Youth Café works with young men and women around Africa as a trailblazer in advancing youth-led approaches toward achieving sustainable development, social equity, innovative solutions, community resilience, and transformative change.

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