WINGS Forum was held in Africa for the first time!

It's time for Africa.

WINGSForum aims to provide a platform to imagine, explore and experiment with different paths as individuals, organizations, and as a field. It brought together more than 350 attendees from over 50 countries from October 3-5, 2023, at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. Philanthropy leaders, professionals, networks, experts and changemakers from around the world representing all forms and types of philanthropy were here.

The Youth Cafe participated in the Wings Forum 2023, where the Executive Director, Willice Onyango, attended the event. In regards to the theme of this event, The Youth Cafe is striving to achieve advanced youth-led approaches towards achieving sustainable development, social equity, innovative solutions, and transformative change.

The theme for this year, ' Transform Philanthropy to Transform the World'‘, is based on the need for us to transform ourselves, our practices, our institutions, and our ways of working to address the scale, complexity and urgency of multiple intersecting major global issues that together constitute the global poll crisis.

In a series of plenaries, member-led workshops, and side events, this flagship event will address and shape global discussions in philanthropy and offer inspiring speakers and networking opportunities. It will further highlight the rich and varied social and philanthropic innovations that are happening across the globe.

During the event, three thematic areas were discussed:

1. ENABLE CHANGE

This track focused on shifting from a mindset of achieving results to enabling others - to spark deeper, broader, and faster change. This session challenged power dynamics through thinking about decolonisation, trust-based philanthropy, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and risk-taking.

2. WALK THE TALK

Here, participants reflected on the how rather than the what of transformation. It emphasised personal and organisational transformation and highlighted the need to align values and missions across wealth creation, management, investments, leadership, and equity.

3. CREATE THE FUTURE

In this track, they navigated existential threats, how they translate to our realities and how we can address them through a holistic, long-term approach. Topics include climate change, conflicts, economic models, inequality, AI and technological disruptions.