Why Is International Youth Day Important?

A webinar by YOUTHLEAD.

It is interesting and inspiring to see countless young people globally get their "hands dirty" while working to emancipate themselves from systemic injustices posed on them for the meager fact that they are young. Youths have decided to rise and challenge the status quo by actively and meaningfully engage in all stages of design and implementation of projects and processes.

As a living embodiment of the youth, The Youth Cafe actively participated in a webinar organized by Youthlead as a commemoration of the IYD. YouthLead is a network designed for young change-makers making a positive impact in their community through service, activism, advocacy, education, and entrepreneurship. The network members are focused on finding solutions by connecting people, ideas, and resources to tackle critical issues affecting young people at home and around the world.

The main agenda of the webinar was to draw lessons on how young people’s representation and engagement in formal institutional politics can be significantly enhanced. The theme ‘Youth Engagement for Global Action’ is particularly important at these hard times of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are faced with challenges of how we can reimagining our world and for many the struggle of surviving the day. The pandemic is challenging but also an eye-opener for us to understand how institutions and processes can and must serve all people better. The pandemic has presented us with a chance of embracing the energy and imagination of young people who have always wanted to be involved in these processes.

The webinar had a wide panel of subject matter experts and young leaders from large networks who dissected the theme shared their perspectives and experiences with active participation from the participants.

The first speaker at the webinar was Dr. Christy Olenik, Technical Director at YouthPower2: Learning and Evaluation (YP2LE). She spoke about the concept of Positive Youth Development (PYD) and how it contributes to the Youth Inclusion. PYD is a philosophy and approach that is designed to support young people as they grow into healthy, productive, and engaged adults. Evidence gathered over years concurs that the PYD approach increases civic engagement, supports better academic success, and develops healthy relationships. PYD approaches engage the youth, their families, and governments to help the youth reach their full potential. The PYD has a framework that is majorly divided into 4 components: Assets, Agency, Enabling environment, and contribution. 

The next session was a panel session led by various astounding youths to discuss PYD in Action. The changemakers shared how they have sparked change in their communities using the PYD approach. The phenomenal young leaders included: Abimbola Akinsanya from Nigeria, who works with an initiative that makes sure children in the slum areas have access to quality education and healthcare: Anam Rathor, from Pakistan, a climate change activist who is also a feminist and majorly works with grassroots organizations to promote development: Wubetu Shimelash from Ethiopia, who has a travel company that they use to tackle issues of gender inequality/empowerment and also advocates for gender inclusivity in their community.

 Interestingly, all the panelists agreed that youths are extremely important when it comes to programming of any process or project. Furthermore, the youths should collaboratively work together to break the barriers that are in place which hinders them from actively being engaged. In as much as the youth hold the key to their development, it is important to have good partnerships with adults as they provide invaluable insights on how to rightfully model programs and processes. As Anam quipped, "Youth- adult relationships should not be ignored as they have stronghold and power in our communities and they have rich experience that we can all learn from. However, these adults need to cede power to the youths and maybe take up the supervision roles more.”

The last session of the webinar had a rich panel who tackled the topic of; connecting young leaders, making change. Michael McCabe, Youth Agency Coordinator at the USAID opened up the discussion by explaining how USAID is responding to global challenges faced by the youths. For the IYD celebration, USAID is currently running a campaign dubbed 'Youth as partners in development’. This campaign is by having a series of webinars, social media messaging and telling stories of youths and young leaders around the world. The main focus of the campaign is on Youth and global leadership and education, the response of the youth to COVID19, and issues on peace and security.

As explained by Michael, the following 5 trends are critical and the youths need to focus their attention on them in the light of the COVID19 pandemic.

1.      Unprecedented health crisis at scale - How are youths working on community health issues as a lot more people has become vulnerable.

2.      Impact of the pandemic on households and their resilience- Using the PYD approach, young people are needed to address issues on poverty, education, income, etc.

3.      Migration and mobility in the economy- The youth need to look at new models for cash for work and come up with innovative ways of workforce development majorly based on technology.

4.      Peace and security- Youths should look into building a culture of peace and security.

5.      Governance and democracy- The youth should be empowered to play a role in civic and governance roles and ensure youth voice is strengthened.

Key takeaways from the webinar were the immense importance of leading by example, demonstrating for other young people what action steps they can take to stay safe - modeling behaviors, connecting youth with both learning and knowledge materials. As COVID-19 is a shared challenge, many youths are rising to the challenge of COVID-19, to educate their communities, take action. Many young people are also starting to think about life post-COVID-19. How do we shift our systems and mechanisms for the opportunity to support youth post-pandemic? There is a lot of collaboration and information sharing among young people and between countries. There is a borderless quality to youth engagement and activity going on right now that is exciting and offers a lot of potentials. Even though we're experiencing a pandemic, there is so much room for youth and PYD, for youth to step up and lead and articulate what kind of future they want. We need to keep this momentum going.

The bottom line, it was amazing to connect with the young people globally who are part of the youth empowerment movement. All these young people are going above and beyond breaking barriers and ensuring they are leaving a mark in the sand of time. We all need to introspect and ask ourselves as a young person, what is it you are doing that will spark for?

Are you just a spectator in these ever-increasing precarious environments we as young people live in? Let us all strive to be part of the change. Let us keep these conversations going! From us at The Youth Café, Happy International Youths Day.

The views and opinions expressed here belong to the author or interviewee and do not necessarily reflect those of  The Youth Cafe.