The Youth CafE: A Decade of Impact and Innovation in African Youth Development.
The Youth Cafe(TYC) is one of Africa’s largest convening communities of young professionals, harnessing youth’s participation and expertise in advocacy, policy and research for social impact. TYC engages over 3,500 member organizations, 1,200 subject matter experts, and over 947,000 individuals aged 18-35 virtually from different countries in Africa. On a monthly basis, over 260,000 digital touchpoints are organized. Its broad membership enables TYC to become an incubator and trusted center of excellence for best practices, tools, and standards for youth development. For over a decade, TYC has implemented more than 45 projects through service contracts, consultancies and grants. It has utilized different approaches in engaging youth including Science-Policy Interface (SPI), Youth Advocacy Accelerator, Systems Acumen for Youth-led Development (SAYD), Issue-based Collaborative Networks (ICONS), and media campaigns. In the assignment, TYC will focus on youth engagement in East Africa.
We are an organization driven by highly skilled, motivated, and passionate individuals who come from diverse backgrounds and believe that real change is possible. Our consulting arm leads in international research, consulting, program management, and is a communications services provider. We combine our passion and business professionalism to make a difference in the world. The Youth Cafe has also utilized youth-led approaches in the execution of its mandate. This approach recognizes young people as agents of change and promotes their leadership in development processes. It involves young people taking the lead in identifying community needs, designing programs, and implementing solutions. The approach emphasizes building the capacity and skills of young people, fostering their empowerment, and creating platforms for their active engagement in development initiatives
Through The Youth Cafe’s value addition, experience, complementary expertise, outreach and coverage, a partnership brings uniqueness, tangible impact and, more importantly, sustainability of the capacity building on meaningful youth engagement, and overall assignment beyond the project timeline.
Furthermore, The Youth Cafe and all partners have excellent established relations with Young Parliamentarian Associations, Registrar of political parties, youth leagues, Parliamentary Committees, East African Community, AU Youth Envoy Office, East African Parliament, Political Party umbrella bodies like Center for Multiparty Democracy in Kenya, Tanzania Center for Multiparty Democracy, government entities, key government and private sector institutions, and other non-state actors, including universities, academia and research institutions, as well as with other institution donors at national, regional and continental levels. This will increase the leverage of the assignment.
Utilizing the successful and tested model of The Youth Cafe mobilizes young people and existing youth networks from different levels in Kenya to test products through its safe and inclusive youth-led platform that provides opportunities for youth to engage, empower, act, drive impact and lead policy changes, innovation and solutions in Kenya.
Innovations are essential in our work. The hybrid models of physical and virtual approaches enables us to reach more young people across the regions and ensure cost-efficiency. Online resources, applicants’ existing resources, online networking, training and meetings, online games platforms and applications promotes easy access and foster greater interest among young people to learn, participate and contribute to the assignment objectives.
The Youth Engagement Nexus (YEN) model is another innovative approach, developed by The Youth Cafe, based on its methodology, best practices, and connections. YEN connects innovations by each activity to create a dynamic and effective model for youth participation, offering a unique and integrated approach for its impact and effectiveness.
Rooted in Rights Based Approach, TYC’s Governance and Political Inclusion (Accountability) pillar have collaborated with members within our network to result in the following outputs:
1. Developed precise youth-centered manifestos that are contextualized to guide leaders on youth engagement and development in line with the general elections, for example, the Kenya Youth Manifesto.
2. Enhanced voters’ awareness about the electoral process and laid the foundation for increased citizen participation in governance over the long term.
3. Since 2020, The Youth Cafe members have participated and supported youth in the Southern and East Africa (SEA) region to enhance their political participation through the Political Party Leadership Institute (PPLI) program. Recognizing the role and impact that youth party leaders have on democracies, the program provides training support and mentoring assistance to young political party members to enhance the capacity and to implement self-initiated projects that position them to contribute to formal political party processes effectively.
4. Checked for enhanced credibility of the electoral process through Youth Election Observation missions and promoted confidence and fostered trust in the electoral process.
5. Supported validation of PPLI training modules include skills building sessions in communication strategies, stakeholder mapping, fundraising, public speaking and networking. Over two iterations of the program with participants from Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zambia, the PPLI has trained cohorts of over 60 participants (31 young female and 30 young male) from ruling and opposition political parties. Some past participants have been appointed into key party positions following their participation in PPLI activities.
6. The Youth Cafe is currently partnering with young people in more than 8 countries in Africa To support their work on election monitoring, issue advocacy campaigns, youth caucuses and parliamentary networks, parliamentary internships, local councils, political party youth mechanisms, such as youth wings, debate clubs, civic and voter education, and youth-oriented get out the vote (GOTV) campaigns, among others. Building bridges among youth-led and youth-serving civil society organizations also became an early feature of TYC’s approach.
7. The Youth Cafe is currently partnering with young people in more than 8 countries in Africa To support their work on election monitoring, issue advocacy campaigns, youth caucuses and parliamentary networks, parliamentary internships, local councils, political party youth mechanisms, such as youth wings, debate clubs, civic and voter education, and youth-oriented get out the vote (GOTV) campaigns, among others. Building bridges among youth-led and youth-serving civil society organizations also became an early feature of TYC’s approach.
8. Worked with TYC members on self-initiated projects covering the range of topics including women's political participation, preventing electoral violence, climate action and environmental governance, youth entrepreneurship and smallholder farmers and advocacy campaigns for inclusion of marginalized groups in political parties and political processes.
9. Established virtual learning hub for collecting and disseminating advocacy tools and resources and facilitating cross-country exchanges for peer learning and networking via webinars, blogs, or support groups. We have co-designed with the youth an appropriate learning management system, the established user rules, and its beta testing. TYC is currently working to house the hub on its site and is fundraising to obtain ongoing funding to manage the hub after the partnership ends. In addition, our team has leveraged existing open-access platforms for the targeted sharing of best practices on advocacy strategies at national, regional, and global levels (e.g., Participedia, Youth Power, Youth Excel, Advocacy Accelerator, etc.).
10. Promoted youth participation, capacity, networking and advocacy with key decision makers of the AU, East African Community, National Youth Councils, and state departments for youth.
11. Supported at risk and marginalized youth in strengthening their resilience to violence and violent extremism, enhanced their capacity to engage positively with authorities and increased their access to conflict sensitive information.
12. Documented best electoral processes practices for reform and developing policy briefs that will be used for advocacy to provide inspiration and information to practitioners and other supporters of youth political participation.
13. Held an annual multimedia contest for young people to promote youth-led solutions to promote good governance.
14. Supported the European Partnership for Democracy and Youth Democracy Cohort in the implementation of The Ignite African Youth Project, an EU funded project which aims to improve Youth participation in governance and democratic processes in Africa.
15. Worked with Youth Secretariats of the various political parties in Kenya to develop the Kenya Youth Manifesto. The Manifesto has been used as a benchmark in Uganda and Tanzania.
16. Offered consultancy services to a section of Uganda MPs, around the elements and process of policy making with specific regards to young people.
17. The Youth Cafe has also employed a positive youth development framework that focuses on promoting the holistic development of young people by providing them with opportunities for skill-building, fostering positive relationships, and facilitating their engagement in meaningful activities. It recognizes that youth engagement should go beyond consultation and involve young people in decision-making processes that directly impact their lives. Positive youth development frameworks aim to empower young people, build their resilience, and promote their well-being.
18. TYC advises the Kenyan Presidential Economic Recovery Secretariat on matters of Youth Economic Empowerment.
19. Supported the establishment of networks and platforms that support youth engagement and advocacy. These include memberships in the youth-lead, Global Democracy Coalition, Democracy R&D, Athens Democracy Forum, East African Philanthropy Network, Africa Philanthropy Network, Youth Serving Organizations Network, the UN Major Group for Children and Youth, the Climate Change Working Group, Kenya SDGs Forum, Youth Democracy Cohort, Health NGOs Network, Startup Hubs, all of which are functioning and thriving institutions that The Youth Cafe continues to support.
20. Leveraged and adapted digital participation platforms for youth, women, and marginalized groups with digital access to voice their concerns with relevant state actors for remediation. This includes curating a list of open-source digital participation platforms (like Kenya Youth Participatory Budgeting); selecting an accessible, private, and sustainable platform; testing the platform; and launching it. Our platforms have also assisted state actors in tracking whether issues have been resolved and invite input on budgets and other planning documents early in their planning processes.
21. Strengthened the capacity of youth-led organizations and networks to use evidence to inform the development of layered and blended advocacy strategies like SMART youth engagement cycles, Local youth-led organizations and networks selected through The Youth Cafe’s small-grant mechanism administered by the African Youth Foundation, have supported youth-led organizations to identify evidence-based advocacy strategies and resources to achieve their youth advocacy policy goals.
22. Mentored Thematic Working Groups (TWG) members on the use of adaptive management techniques to monitor the implementation of national and sectoral plans, annual operational budgets and develop action plans to sustain youth-responsive and gender-transformative youth services and products.
23. Leveraged the Youth Engagement Capacity Review Approach, which has been used to identify advocacy strengths and challenges and prioritize building more robust practices through capacity-strengthening plans using a blend of technical assistance approaches. During the process, local organizations select top advocacy-strengthening priorities, outline strategies to address them, and identify resources to support these efforts. These resources are not limited to but include approaching other relevant donors for funding, engaging with other open-access platforms or online learning platforms, and changing organizational practices to optimize existing resources.
24. Conducted Community Civic Education and Sensitization Forums at local, national , and regional. The forums brought together participants from youth, women, PWDS from the 14 political parties, and other interest groups in Kenya. Also conducts live interactive community Radio civic sensitization forums, held at major community radio stations like Pamoja FM in Kibera, Ibse Radio in Marsabit, and Radio Lake Victoria in Homabay.
25. The Youth Cafe is also known for Virtual social media, Twitter space engagement with young politicians from political parties, CSOs such as Siasa Place, and the Social Justice Centers. Additionally, TYC sponsors and authors articles reviewing SIG representation in the context of the International Day of Parliamentarism.
26. Featured in local and international media outlets on youth political inclusion, including on the Star Newspaper, The Guardian, The BBC, African Arguments, Citizen TV, to mention a few.
27. By the Use Of Theatre For Social Change in an Initiative Dubbed "Voices In Spaces" Amazon Theatric Ensemble coins its Performances in the Community Through Theatre and Spoken Word to Capacity Build Youths and Young People in Information on Democracy, Governance and Human Rights.
28. Through the use of Youth Model Assembly (Imitation of the Actual County Assembly Proceeding with all the Components), The Youth Cafe Young People a platform to carry out sessions in the Community to address Social issues, providing a platform to youths to play the role of Legislatures across the 35 wards in various Counties to Sharpen their Skills on the County and National legislative system capable of Coming up with Policy Briefs and Formulations, Memos and Communicate to champion for the Development at the Community Level thus capacity Exchange on the process.
29. Utilized the Learning-Action model in collaboration with local youth organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa in implementing project activities. The multi-pronged approach to learning process, mentorship and exposure geared towards networking action/using the skills and impact as a result of support from the project.
30. Our strength lies in the unrivaled diversity of our team, comprising a group of highly talented, determined, and enthusiastic people who come from all backgrounds and think that genuine change is possible. Our solution-oriented methodology aims to establish a connection between the growth we want to see among young people from historically underprivileged communities and the investment world. We seek to forge a link between the development we strive to achieve amongst young people from previously disadvantaged communities and the Investment world. We accomplish this by seeking to evaluate our transformation mandate against both revenue targets and social impact outcomes. Through this model, we can provide our partners with measurable solutions.
31. The Youth Cafe’s focus is to seed real, lasting systemic change for young people in Africa, guided by rigorous evidence of impact, approach, and our values of efficiency, transparency, and respect.
Our strength lies in the unrivaled diversity of our team, comprising a group of highly talented, determined, and enthusiastic people who come from all backgrounds and think that genuine change is possible. Our solution-oriented methodology aims to establish a connection between the growth we want to see among young people from historically underprivileged communities and the investment world. We seek to forge a link between the development we strive to achieve amongst young people from previously disadvantaged communities and the Investment world. We accomplish this by seeking to evaluate our transformation mandate against both revenue targets and social impact outcomes. Through this model, we can provide our partners with measurable solutions.
The Youth Cafe’s focus is to seed real, lasting systemic change for young people in Africa, guided by rigorous evidence of impact, approach, and our values of efficiency, transparency, and respect.