The Youth Café is excited to announce the official launch of the strategic plan for the years 2021 to 2023! The theme of this plan is “Investing in the youth for accelerated inclusive growth and sustainable development”. The event took place virtually on Friday the 28th of May 2021. We were so humbled by the amazing turnout, with our partners and stakeholders attending from all over the world. 

The event began with the screening of an animated 2D video depicting our Theory of Change. This Theory of Change was devised as a roadmap to help guide us as we strive to meaningfully impact society. It is a pathway for action, sustainability, results, learning, and adaptation. It highlights our eight focus areas, which are: 

1. Peace and Security

2. Governance and Political Inclusion (Remittances)

3. Governance and Political Inclusion (Accountability)

4. Culture, Arts and Sports

5. Education and Skills

6. Business, Job creation and Entrepreneurship

7. Universal Health Coverage

8. Environmental preservation, and Climate Change.

Next, there was an overview of the Strategic plan by the executive director of The Youth Café, Willice Onyango. He spoke about the relevance and need of the plan in relation to the African youth today. The youth café seeks to build a world on the collective principles of solidarity, justice, equity, universality, inclusion, human rights, diversity, and the integrity of the planet. Striving for a resilient world where young people in all their diversity are equals in decision making.

The youth café works to ensure diversity and inclusion of all young people, taking into account among other things region, geography, gender identity, sex, socioeconomic status, faith, religion, culture, ethnicity, greed, disability, sexuality, marginalized grouping, legal status, etc. 

The four key strategies emphasized in the overview were: Partnering with young people to scale up potential and build a better, more resilient Africa. To actualize this, our projects will have multi-stakeholder and cross-sector approaches which draw concrete links between younger and older generations on one hand and Africa and other regions on the other, enabling exchanges, creating a resilient continent for all generations.

Leverage Research, Learning, and Adaptation in all projects, with an ultimate goal of creating spaces for reflection and constructive feedback loops to generate new project ideas, and to adapt our processes and materials based on lessons learned.

Cultivate sustainability and self reliance in all TYC projects. This includes building sufficient technical capacity, skills, and competencies for diversified revenue and funding streams, to act as agents of our own development, and nurture relationships with and search for future potential partners.

Finally, advance gender-responsive youth programming in a bid to build agency, and build capacity of young people in all their diversity. The Youth Café recognizes that unequal power distributions and social exclusions deny people their human rights and often keep them in poverty. Hence, there is a need to ensure that marginalized, disadvantaged, and excluded groups (such as women, children, people living with disability, minorities and indigenous people) are meaningfully engaged and participate in the implementation, review, and follow-up of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as well as other relevant national, regional, and global agendas and frameworks. 

Then, a video was played containing testimonies from some of the beneficiaries of our COVID-19 relief fund project. Due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the adverse effects the pandemic had on young people. As such, The Youth Café partnered to provide unconditional cash transfers to 200,000 young men and women over a span of four months, to cushion the effects on marginalized youth in the slum areas of Nairobi. We were so humbled and happy to see the young people using the funds to take care of their basic needs and education. 

Next, we had one of our board members, May Maloba who gave an enlightening speech about the projects she spearheads, under the thematic area of Universal Health Coverage. One of the notable projects highlighted in her talk was the COVID-19 lockdown live project undertaken in partnership with the University of Sussex which provided a platform for African youth to share their experiences and struggles with mental health due to the lockdown. 

We then had a video of some of the interns and volunteers we work with who spoke about their experiences working with us. At The Youth Café we pride ourselves in having a youth led expertise. This is why we work with over 4500 interns and volunteers globally on various programs. We believe very strongly that given the opportunity, youth in Africa and around the world have the potential to make a remarkable difference.

Binti Zani, a volunteer at The Youth Café was on the call and had the opportunity to speak to us directly about her experiences. She told us what it meant to her to be an empowered African youth and how she saw the programs at TYC promoting empowerment of African youth today.

Next on the agenda, we had a video message from the youngest ambassador of The Youth Café, Stacey Fru who is a South African, multiple award winning, bestselling author, internationally acclaimed public speaker, philanthropist and the founder of The Stacey Fru Foundation. She emphasized the importance of positive youth development and how investing in the youth is the surest way of attaining the Sustainable Development Goals. Indeed, part of the mission of The Youth Café is to promote youth empowerment in Africa, and we aspire to achieve this mission through our strategic plan.

After that beautiful message from Stacey Fru, we spoke to two of our vibrant staff members whose roles are instrumental in attaining the fruition of the strategic plan. Caroline Kamau, the senior Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Adaptation Officer, and Synthia Ontita, the Senior Project Research and Management officer. They gave their opinions on a number of important issues.

How does The Youth Café Invest In The Youth?

The Youth Café has positioned itself in four ways to ensure youth investment is real. Firstly, TYC is building a more relevant, sustainable, and effective enabling environment for education and work systems for young people, that recognize their rights and will. This enabling environment includes emphasis on soft skills such as critical thinking, time management and adaptability which are necessary in today's work environment. TYC is also helping to advance technologies thus supporting young people’s creativity and innovation. The youth need to be prepared for the jobs of the future not the past.

Secondly, TYC involves young people at all levels in decision making processes that will affect their lives. This circles back to addressing barriers and negative perceptions of young people often influenced by stereotypes. We often hear that young people are careless, clueless and erratic. Giving youth a voice in development upholds our democracy and increases the chances of program success.

Thirdly, TYC partners with young people to build a better, more resilient world for all generations. Partnering with young people includes responding to community challenges, particularly providing support to the most marginalized and vulnerable groups of young people such as cultural minorities, and hearing, visually and physically challenged persons.

Lastly, TYC frames youth programs on a gender-responsive Rights Based Approach(RBA), implying that young people are considered ‘Right-holders’. 

How Does The Youth Café Make a Difference?

As a youth-led and youth serving organization, TYC makes a difference in five main ways; We are a unique youth initiative with a vast reach in Africa working for the youth and with the youth to ensure that the voices of young people are heard by being part of our programs so that in the end we are able to foster community resilience, propose innovative solutions, drive social progress and youth empowerment, and inspire political change.

As a mobilizing force, We work to ensure we achieve results in partnerships with the youth, private organizations, government, international organizations, religious communities, the United Nations, civil society groups, corporations and foundations.

As a catalytic action driven initiative and a global bridge builder, We implement in supporting innovative projects on the ground bringing the youth closer to youth programming by engaging member states, regional, continental and global organizations, and opportunities that address issues relevant to African Youth.

As a convener, we facilitate inclusive, accessible and empowering digital and physical spaces for youth including marginalized youth and young women to meaningfully engage with different institutions through supporting and promoting structured mechanisms of engagement and feedback.

Finally, as a creative amplifying laboratory because we seek to advocate for and foster innovative, impactful and progressive policies that promote youth participation and engagement at national, regional and global levels.

What makes The Youth Café Unique?

A combination of essential traits makes TYC so unique. We incorporate youth led expertise by ensuring that youth led programs are opportunities created by youth or youth centric organizations where youth lead planning, decision-making, facilitation, reflection, and evaluation on issues that matter to them and their communities. Sharing power and letting youth lead allows for youth empowerment and increases youth engagement.

At TYC, we believe that if it’s for the youth, it should be by the youth supported by adult allies. Our management structures are unique, in that they are customized to fit the needs of every project and deliver high-quality, on budget, well executed programs with professionalism, efficiency, and integrity.

The Youth Café continuously seeks to improve programs and deliver the best to beneficiaries. Doing so ensures that work is satisfactory, goals are achieved and the real impact is created. The public/private partnerships of The Youth Café are representations of the support network that TYC has in its advocacy work. Partnerships include universities in and outside Africa, youth-serving organizations, and other international partners. These organizations offer mentorships, connections, support, and funds which are all necessary for increasing the relevance of The Youth Café in the work that we do.

Following that insightful conversation, it was time for some entertainment. Since TYC uses talent and youth friendly ways for our advocacy and dissemination purposes, we showed a music video by a group of talented young artists from Kariobangi. The song is titled ‘Vijana hawana wera’ which roughly translates to ‘young people have no jobs’. It was a very strong and opinionated song highlighting the struggles young people go through due to the rising unemployment rate in Kenya. It was transformative. 

Then, we had the pleasure of speaking to some of our partners including James Karongo Kuria, who is the regional program officer for Youth Excel; for International Research and Exchange board (IREX), Dr. Emma Newport, sustainability research program fellow at the university of Sussex, and Faridah Abdallah, who is a youth co-worker at the SOS Children’s Villages in Kenya.

Acknowledging that we partner with all of them in different ways, we asked them to share some of their experiences about partnering with TYC and to offer their insight into how they think the strategic plan will lead to advancements of the various collaborations we have. They offered kind words and said that the most important principle in the strategic plan is the youth centered approach, wherein our projects are specifically designed for the youth and carried out by the youth. They especially appreciated The Youth Cafés belief of involving young people at all levels of decision making processes that will affect their lives. We ended this segment by expressing a mutual hope to continue fostering strong partnerships with all our stakeholders and potential partners.

Finally, we had the pleasure of listening to a keynote address by Dr. Cherie Enns, who is an experienced educator and has led several humanitarian projects internationally including across East Africa related to child rights, food systems, Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs), urban planning policy, and youth engagement. She holds an MA in Community and Regional Planning and a Ph.D. In International Policy and Program Management at Ardhi Regional University in Tanzania.

Cherie also leads a Universities Canada Internship program and has directed some of the interns to work with us at The Youth Café. Her address was truly enlightening and inspiring, she spoke to the tenacity and the potential of the youth to actively change the narrative and act as pioneers in directing the future not only of Africa but the world. She also prompted the “non-youths” to support the youth in transformative, new and inspirational ways.

With that, we were excited to announce the official launch of the strategic plan for the years 2021 to 2023! 

These are some of the feedbacks we got during the engagement with our members:

Sanganyi paul : Wow, that is encouraging caro, like how you explain the position of young people, Calls for identification in position in employment. The youth should be given the opportunity to participate in implementation of policy with adults.

Ignatius Odongo : Thanks for articulating the key aspects of your strategic plan. It is now clear where areas of collaboration are. I love the ongoing discussion, am so inspired as a Youth.

Steve Burger, WNIN : Congratulations TYC staff, interns, volunteers and partners on creating a sustainable and successful organization that will serve youth well in the future. From my viewpoint in the U.S., I am glad my country is participating in funding some of these projects. I encourage you to continue on this path of youth-led and youth-centered programming. What you do is important, it matters and it is getting a lot of attention around the world.

Emma Newport : All of the interns on our project have all been incredible: hardworking, creative, dedicated to the project and a vital pivot between the researchers and youth participants in our co-creation workshops.

Thomas Kalunge : Amazing work TYC and all those involved. I like it that TYC serves as a connector of youth in Africa. I see the advocacy of putting their potential, their skills. See you soon.