The Youth Café Is The Newest Member Of Democracy Research & Development.
On the 19th of January 2022, The Youth Café got admission as the newest and only member in East and Central Africa to Democracy R&D. Democracy R&D is an international network of organizations, associations, and individuals helping decision-makers take hard decisions and build public trust. The Youth Café had been interviewed on the 10th of January and on behalf of the coordination group, David Schecter, proposed The Youth Café as a new organizational member of Democracy R&D, where the proposal was met with no objections.
Democracy R&D selects participants through random selection and deliberations. This is done to form a group of people that genuinely reflects the broader population. They not only want to hear from the loudest, most active voices, but they also want to hear from people from all walks of life. The easiest way is to select participants randomly and by using stratified sampling techniques, they ensure that participants reflect the demographics of their population, such as gender, ethnicity, age, and income. There is also growing awareness that diverse groups make better decisions.
The Youth Café is set to benefit from being an organizational member of Democracy R&D by having opportunities to network with other organizations and forging partnerships to work on joint projects. The Youth Café will also be able to cross share best practices in the democratic scene and create opportunities for learning on innovative and creative democratic models. Getting technical advice from experts in the Democracy R&D network, having a platform to share The Youth Cafés work, events, and projects on governance and democracy will also be beneficial.
The Youth Café hopes as part of its membership, to take part in Democracy R&D annual summits, build on its democracy and youth agendas, build on its democracy and research, and take part in Democracy R&D projects.
The Youth Café and its partners are collaboratively writing The Revised Regional/County Youth Manifestos that will eventually feed into The National Kenya Youth Manifesto 2022 (KYM 2022), to outline the views of the nation's youth, in their demand to be given equal opportunities and supported to actively participate in the forthcoming general elections.
The Revised Kenya Youth Manifesto 2022 (KYM 2022) will focus on youth participation in the democratic process and seek to engage young people in issues that affect them through increasing their informed participation in the upcoming 2022 elections in Kenya. The KYM 2022 will also seek to effectively include young people in democracy by providing a platform to organize, generate ideas and voice their opinions without the interference of power differences.
The KYM 2022 will seek to increase the participation of marginalized groups, such as youth with disabilities, youth living in streets and vagrant youth, youth with health concerns, female youth, and the boy child, unemployed and underemployed youth, youth not in education, employment, and training, youth in learning institutions, incarcerated youth, youth in conflict situations, youth living in informal settlements, and youth in emergencies.
The process of developing The Revised Kenya Youth Manifesto involves the use of a Youth Jury. A youth jury is made up only of young people, typically aged between 15-35. We believe that youth juries provide young people with a unique and stimulating way of talking about and being involved with issues that concern them and have an impact on their lives, their community, and their country. A youth jury is a way for the wider community to listen to the voices of young people, and for the jury members to be exposed to a variety of different views.
The process is designed to overcome the problems of traditional forms of consultation, which often attract only ‘the incensed and articulate’, by including ordinary youth as well.
Randomly selected youth juries from the 8 regions will meet to deliberate and make recommendations on the problem statement and solution, the structure of the manifesto, the framework of the manifesto, etc. Much like a jury in a legal case, a Youth Jury will receive background information about the emerging issues and challenges, and then make a considered “judgment” on the components of the draft manifestos.
The Youth Jury process is undertaken in three phases which include: The Information Phase which is the introduction to the persona creation process will be where information is provided so that participants can learn about the issue at hand. The second phase will be The Reflection Phase and at this point, the participants take a day to internalize the information and come up with personal views. And the final phase is the Deliberation Phase where jurors (members of the youth jury are randomly chosen from the general public in a way that represents the demographic make-up of their community) work together to share perspectives and come up with collective recommendations.
An example of where a successful youth jury has been used is the Leicestershire youth jury 2002. This youth jury was held on behalf of the Leicestershire Rural Partnership. The objective was to hear the views of young people in the country about what was important to them. The jury was made up of 14 young people aged between 14 and 18 who were representative of the Leicestershire community as a whole in terms of gender, age, mobility, ability, and geographical location.
The jurors made recommendations on how to ensure that young people in Leicestershire are engaged in decision-making, how young people want to be able to access services, and their priorities. The jury highlighted barriers to young people becoming independent. Jurors noted the lack of choice to political parties and the feeling that they were not considered to be part of the electorate. Jurors considered that having a say in areas such as the future of society and college would make young people feel more independent.
The Youth Cafés work on democracy has allowed it to be recognized both locally and internationally. In 2021, The Youth Café won the UNESCO award and was listed as the 4th best NGO in Kenya and the 2nd best in the capital city of Nairobi. The Youth Café is a member of several organizations in democracy and governance such as Democracy R&D, The IEBC Coordinating Committee on Elections.
The Youth Café, took part in high-level events and conferences such as the 2063 Academy Youth Dialogue organized by AUDA-NEPAD, and Atlas 4dev, in partnership with the African Union Commission, Maghreb Economic Forum, and Facebook Africa to serve as a platform in which the needs and voices of the youth can needs can be addressed, amplified, and their engagement in the realization of Agenda 2063 can be advanced. The Youth Café was also honorably invited in its capacity as a youth-led and youth-serving organization to be a panelist on the Peace and Cohesion Break-Away Session for the 7th Annual Devolution Conference with a specific theme of Prevention and Management of Climate Change Instigated Conflicts: Collaborative Responses.
In addition, The Youth Café was recognized by the US Mission in Kenya and nominated among the only 70 youth leaders chosen globally to participate in the Summit for Democracy, it was a virtual event held on December 9-10, 2021, and hosted by the President of the United States Joe Biden, and joined by other Chiefs of State, Heads of Government, international and civil society organization leaders, and other governmental and non-governmental participants.
During the summit, The Youth Café highlighted its work that strengthens democracy and supports democratic ambitions. The Youth Café also committed to having a bold suite of new programming to strengthen our democracy work and expose, track, and disrupt transnational corruption and mitigate its impact on democratic governance and development progress by working at the local, national, regional, and global levels.
The Youth Café is focusing on the next generation and youth inclusion in democratic processes. Youth participation is essential to our mission. When you empower young people, it helps us build stronger communities and a brighter future.
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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