YouthLead News, Summer 2021
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Welcome to YouthLead News!
A newsletter for young changemakers
Spring 2021
Announcing the Winners of the Global LEAD #WatchOurImpact Digital Storytelling Contest
Congratulations to the winners of the Global LEAD #WatchOurImpact Digital Storytelling Contest! These winners demonstrated the impact they are having on their respective communities by submitting an original, three-minute video or slideshow sharing their stories.
S. Abida Bhirawasiwi
Best Overall Video
Chaima Amraoui
Most Impactful Video
Ineza Umuhoza Grace
Most Inspirational Video
Beatrace Ndisha Mwanjala
Best Overall Slideshow
Padili James Mikomangwa
Most Engaging Video
Submissions were voted on by the YouthLead members and evaluated by a committee of judges based on voice and power, experience and engagement, inspiration, and impact. The winners will also make an appearance at the #WatchOurImpact Dialogue event on Aug. 12. For more event details, read below.
Register Today for the #WatchOurImpact Dialogue Event Set for August 12
Join us on International Youth Day for the Global LEAD #WatchOurImpact Dialogue, where we will celebrate USAID’s Global LEAD Initiative supporting one million young changemakers over the next four years and UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited’s commitment to youth engagement.
The event will be an opportunity for development professionals and young changemakers around the globe, including those from the YouthLead and Generation Unlimited networks, to share their insights on the impact youth are making around the world. Co-hosted by USAID Administrator Samantha Power and Generation Unlimited Board of Trustees Member Ilwad Elman, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize Nominee from Somalia, the dialogue will feature the winners of the Global LEAD #WatchOurImpact Digital Storytelling Contest.
All are welcome to join us to celebrate the innovations and stories of how young people are leading change to meet key development priorities.
During the online event, we will:
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Meet the winners of the #WatchOurImpact contest;
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Highlight USAID’s Global LEAD commitment to engage one million young changemakers in key development priority areas over the next four years;
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Underscore the important work of young changemakers globally;
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Discuss how youth can create change and share their stories;
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Create an open dialogue so youth can connect, share, and inspire one another; and
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Share great resources for telling stories and improving programs.
Registration is Now Closed. Watch the complete event.
What's New on YouthLead?
YouthLead Mentorship Initiative Launches
YouthLead’s new Mentorship Initiative is now live! The leading global platform for young changemakers now offers a dedicated space to connect its 12,000 strong community to timely mentorship content, learning resources, and mentorship networks.
The new initiative, rooted in the principles of Positive Youth Development (PYD), recognizes the critical role mentorship plays in mirroring healthy relationships and creating an enabling environment for youth. Young changemakers in the YouthLead Network will learn how to find and cultivate healthy mentor relationships, explore resources on becoming a peer mentor, and discover mentorship programs and networks to help support their personal and career pathways.
YP2LE Senior Youth Engagement Advisor Sarah Sladen, who oversees the YouthLead Mentorship Initiative, is excited to add mentorship as an additional component to the YouthLead platform. “So many of our YouthLead members are already mentoring their peers and younger youth, while also in search of support as they navigate their own pathways as students, community activists, advocates, professionals, and entrepreneurs,” Sarah said. “The added social and economic pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic have further underscored the need for more supportive networks of organizations, services, peers and adults for and with young people around the world. We hope that the Mentorship Initiative on YouthLead will complement existing activities, while offering more opportunities and resources for our YouthLead members.”
Another facet of the initiative is building the capacity of young leaders through learning events and training to increase their knowledge and skills in mentorship and related areas. Capacity strengthening activities will be supported by the YouthLead team and in collaboration with YouthLead sponsors and mentorship partners.
You can watch the YouthLead Mentorship Initiative Launch for an overview of the initiative’s page, its resources, and planned activities. You will also hear from YouthLead members on their experiences with mentorship and skill-building topics that are important to them. The ideas and input shared helps inform how the YouthLead team prioritizes resources, events, and partnerships for the initiative.
For more on the YouthLead Mentorship Initiative, visit www.youthlead.org/mentorship-initiative.
Connect with Us on Social Media
For the latest on members of YouthLead and changemakers like YouthLead Ambassadors Zacheaus Kafeero and Gunel Huseynova, connect with us on Instagram at @youthleadglobal. Discover how these young leaders are transforming their communities for the better!
5 Ways Mentoring Can Positively Impact Your Life
Edna Tukiko does not just talk a good game; she puts in the work. After experiencing firsthand the transformative power of mentoring, she started paying it forward in 2014 by helping other youth and young professionals navigate their futures.
Now, as the Mentorship Lead at YouthPower2: Learning and Evaluation’s Youth Advisory Group, Edna has helped inform the new YouthLead Mentorship Initiative, which is aimed at connecting young changemakers to content, learning resources, and mentorship networks to enhance their leadership skills and support their professional growth.
We caught up with Edna this month to discover the ways mentoring can positively impact people’s lives. She clued us into the benefits, sharing her inspiring story along the way.
Here are five ways mentoring positively impacted Edna’s life.
Participate in a Community of Practice!
YP2LE's Communities of Practice (CoPs) are spaces where youth and youth-serving practitioners can come together to share ideas, tools, and build and test practical resources to advance PYD through collaboration, dialogue, and collective learning. These communities are free and open to all interested youth and youth-serving practitioners. Check out our upcoming events and webinars. Join one (or more!) of the six active CoPs today:
- Business, Entrepreneurship, and Private-sector Engagement CoP: focused on building skills in entrepreneurship and on collaboration with the private sector. Open to all sectors, the CoP will have an emphasis on agriculture initially, adding other sectors such as health, education, or transport based on member interest and feedback.
- Youth Engagement CoP: focused on meaningful youth engagement in all aspects of programming.
- Gender CoP: focused on integrated youth-centered and gender transformative programming through PYD.
- Higher Education Engagement and Transformation CoP: focuses on engaging the international higher education community to advance higher education and youth learning priorities and strengthening the link between PYD and higher education programming through a systems-based approach.
- Youth Systems Strengthening CoP: focuses on providing an open learning and sharing space that allows participants to understand more about the purposes, processes and outcomes associated with reforming systems that impact youth outcomes sustainably and at scale.
- Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Youth CoP on YouthPower.org (English and Arabic): focuses on youth and youth-serving stakeholders supporting PYD in the MENA region.
New Starter Kits Now Available
New starter kits are now available at YouthLead.org. The kits range from focusing on soft skills applicable to all changemakers to focusing on specific sectors that changemakers work in. Check out the latest releases below.
Youth in Agri-Food Systems: This kit contains 15 of the most informative resources on the YouthLead website related to youth participation in agri-food systems. Here you will find tools separated by focus: background materials on the current status of food security and hunger, materials on how the COVID-19 pandemic and agri-food systems feed into each other, and resources on increasing youth participation in local agri-food systems.
Supporting LGBTQI+ Rights: This kit contains 15 of the most informative resources on the YouthLead website related to activism against discrimination directed toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex individuals, as well as individuals with other diverse gender and sexual identities (LGBTQI+).
Virtual Engagement: This kit is a great starting point for anyone seeking to make a difference from a virtual platform. It consists of articles, toolkits, and webinars that will teach you the basics of virtual engagement and highlight the tools you can use to become a virtual changemaker.
Arts for Community Development: This starter kit is useful for all young people looking to learn more about how the arts can positively impact communities and promote UN Sustainable Development Goal 16 to build peaceful and inclusive societies and effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels.
Apply for the Youth Excel Grant Competition
Youth Excel is currently hosting its second open grant competition for local youth-led and youth-serving organizations working youth mental health and/or psychosocial support for vulnerable youth in East and Southern Africa. The grant competition is not restricted to certain technical sectors or to research organizations. Deadline is August 11. Apply here.
UPCOMING YP2LE EVENTS
- August 12, 2021
Global LEAD #WatchOurImpact Dialogue
OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS
NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND RESOURCES
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