This august young leaders and trainers from Africa and Asia were brought together during a Summer School organized by CHOICE, with support from Aids Foundation South Africa, and co-hosted by Dance4Life NL and Kenya and NAYA Kenya, to share experiences, lessons learned and good practices on Meaningful Youth Participation and Youth Empowerment. The Summer School had participants from Uganda, Malawi, Kenya, Mozambique, Ghana, Pakistan, Indonesia and Ethiopia.
Following up
The training was part of the Get Up Speak Out Consortium’s capacity strengthening working group and served as a follow-up for an initial training of trainers which took place in 2017 where they were trained on the Gender Transformative Approach (provided by Rutgers) and Meaningful Youth Participation and Youth Empowerment (provided by CHOICE for Youth & Sexuality and Sexuality and Dance4Life).
With this training, the attendees develop practical training skills; deepen their understanding of the approach and its linkages and learn how to communicate and advocate for meaningful youth participation. New concepts were also introduced to build on their existing knowledge of the approach: generative questioning, creating a safe space for participants and generating traction for MYP trainings.
Working together
The Summer School was designed to be a “living lab” and blur the lines between participant and trainer. As this was an advanced training of trainers, the trainees were also encouraged to go a step beyond, peek behind the curtains and approach the sessions with a trainer’s hat on. This also meant they were in part responsible for the program and its success, and their needs and challenges were taken as leading focus point throughout the program.
The attendees were encouraged to draw upon their personal experiences and the challenges they experience in their work while striving for Meaningful Youth Participation. Through creative thinking attendees were encouraged to come up with creative and innovative solutions to overcome the barriers they experience together. Together with their fellow participants they put these ideas into practice during sessions they facilitated.
Peer-to-peer support
The trainees were extremely passionate, knowledgeable and driven to work on improving Meaningful Youth Participation. Most importantly, they managed to build on each other's knowledge and help each other in taking the next steps, strengthening peer-support for MYP trainers program-wide and fostering connections between implementing partners - ultimately underlining the core of youth empowerment.
Also check out the video on the MYP Summer School by participant Cecil Ato Kwamena Dadzie from Ghana on our Instagram!