johnnymarcus

I am a young man with a background in community development and a strong passion and interests in leadership and advocacy.
Currently, I am an elected volunteer youth Ambassador for young people in the central region of Malawi for a group Getting Young People Involved (GYPI), a pilot project by Voluntary Service Oversees (VSO). A project giving young people an opportunity to raise issues to leaders that influence their lives, including those from donors and government. And on this project I have successfully proven my abilities to research, analyse and articulately present issues affecting different parts of my community to decision makers, and this; makes me an outstanding and confident changemaker. Additionally I am also an alumni member of International Citizen Service (ICS), a vast network of change makers across the globe.
As a vibrant changemaker, I would like to use the YouthLead platform to voiceout issues affecting young and marginalized people. Issues such as high levels of unemployment rate which has become a burden on economies of different countries, exclusion of young people in decision making bodies. And to express issues that young people face in accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health services. I believe this is an opportunity for me to use the YouthLead platform to connect with fellow changemakers, learn new ideas about social media advocacy and to share my advocacy experiences, ideas and skills with fellow young leaders on how to hold decision makers accountable at different levels using citizen led monitoring mechanisms that I have experience in. For example, in May 2018 using Getting Young People Involved platform, managed to conduct a participatory action research on issues that affect young people in my community and successfully presented the findings to a high level meeting with VSO, DFID and members of Malawi parliament.
With proven experience from GYPI group where we successfuly managed to connect our ideas with Malawi youth parliamenterians in November 2018. My first strategy in recruiting new members to the YouthLead network is that, I will first use the already existing networks or platforms that I am already connected with. Which has hundred plus members, such as members of GYPI, YALi, ICS, youth parliamenterians and my strong connection to my church youth groups to spread the message about the importance of joining the YouthLead network. Additionally, to spark enthusiasms in my fellow young changemakers in joining, I will present my ideas on action or activities that young people can be engaged in to solve key local and global challenges, e.g collaborating and creating youth networks to come up with a collective voice or action in solving most pressing issues affecting young people and being involved in entrepreneurship to address issues of unemployment.
I am well versed with different types of technologies such that, from August-November 2015, I was tasked by ICS lattitude to create Facebook and tweeter pages for ICS Alumni Malawi where I was responsible for managing and posting at the pages. I also took a major role in promoting posts for Active Citizen week for Lattitude Global Volunteering. With this experience, I firmly believe I will make a positive contribution to the YouthLead platform.
Thank you.