The International Youth Day is an annual social impact awareness day observed on 12 August each year, to celebrate the energy and possibility represented by the youth and amplify their voices, abilities and innovations. The purpose of this day is to draw attention to the social, cultural, economic and political issues surrounding the youth. With the population of the world steadily increasing and humans heavily relying on the planet's resources for food, it has become evident that the support of youth in restoring and protecting the planet's biodiversity in order to transform food systems around the world is of vital importance. The young generation of today are the stakeholders of tomorrow and their input is important in bringing solutions that will lead to adequate capacity development for the creation of sustainable food systems.

In the spirit of this year's theme, “Transforming Food Systems: Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health”, The Youth Café compiled an article that recognizes valuable contributions from youth in Africa towards achieving sustainable food systems. As a youth-led and youth-serving organization pushing for youth inclusion in important decision-making processes, 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. Therefore, we believe empowering African youth to be innovators and change makers for sustainable food system transformation will help lead to improved employment and economic opportunities as well as reduce inequalities and create more successful transitions for African youth in the labor market. The Youth Café calls for an understanding of the specific impacts ineffective food systems have on young people, the recognition of young people’s own actions, their potential to advance food security, and the start of effective partnerships between organisations and the youth in order to enhance connections and raise awareness of young people's needs when it comes to food systems. Read more about this here: Youth Innovations That Are Transforming Food Systems In Africa

Youth living in today’s modern society have a plethora of opportunities to live, learn, work and impact the world around them. For years, people in positions of leadership have stated that the youth are the future of the world, that youth hold the key to taking up the batons of leadership, innovation, education and knowledge, and therefore continuing to run towards achieving the desired goal for economic inclusion, equality, the eradication of poverty and building a society that always strives towards improvement and development. The Youth Café is at the forefront of guiding youth to become more involved with creating a society that advocates for food sustainability, and human as well as planetary health. On that note, The Youth Café released a statement on International Youth Day 2021: Creating Spaces And Opportunities For Global Food Systems Through Youth-led Innovation in recognition of the need to put youth at the forefront of important decision making processes.

The  Youth Café also forged a partnership with LEAP Africa to implement Youth Day of Service 2021. YDOS is a week-long youth-led social impact campaign to create awareness and mobilize young people across Africa to take civic action in commemoration of the annual United Nations’ International Youth Day, held from 12th August to 18th August, 2021. The campaign theme of 2021 is ‘Youthful and Useful’ as the goal is to foster the active engagement of youths for community development and actualizations of the SDGs in Africa. Read more about this here: The Youth Café Partners With LEAP Africa On The Youth Day Of Service.

Carrying out in-person events has been challenging for us this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but we hope through supporting important initiatives such as these that The  Youth Café can make a significant impact in the community. 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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