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4. Intervention strategies, outcomes & key activities
YEFL-Ghana’s key intervention strategies are as mentioned structured around social, political and economic empowerment of youth in Northern Ghana. In the following the objectives, outcomes, key intervention strategies and activities are outlined.
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4.1 SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT INTERVENTION STRATEGIES This strategy is the driving force of YEFL - GHANA’s existence and mandate. The strategy focuses on mobilizing and organizing youth by facilitating their physical interaction that promotes learning by doing, peer to peer engagements, information sharing that activates active civic engagements between young people and their respective societies. We realize this through the Youth Centres running as social enterprises and as platforms for youth organizing for change!
Objective: Youth have the capacity to co-create, learn and act together to influence change in their communities.
4.1.1 YOUTH ORGANIZING FOR CHANGE - YOUTH HUBS
YEFL-Ghana works with Youth Centers in Northern Region where young people are mobilized and have their agencies build for self empowerment and community development… (need a description of what it is and we can use the graphic illustration here as well) Our goal is to transform the Youth Centers into Youth Hubs that serve as physical spaces that ignite a network of young change-makers mobilized around specific issues and interests, where youth can feel free to engage, create and collaborate working to improve their communities and build their self-confidence. This will be driven by our Youth Peer-Led Transformation Model.
This will promote learning by doing, information sharing, peer to peer engagements, networking, social movements, alliance and coalition building for socialization, responding to emerging needs and pressing issues.
The Youth Centers need to be self-run and independent spaces for youth in the districts to meet and access different services and opportunities. The vision is that the Youth Centres will have a pool of products and services that they can offer to youth in the districts and that they will be able to fund and run these services from their revenue generated. The services and products will benefit the youth of the district and ensure continued social, economic and political development opportunities. So as a sustainability strategy, the Youth Centres will be supported to develop the Social Enterprise concept and run as social enterprises.
4.1.2 CULTURAL EXCHANGE
Culture defines our existence, to this end, we foster a conducive environment that breaks cultural barriers, clichés, and stereotypes by learning and unlearning with others. We call our cultural experience “A bridge to Practice and Learning.” In this regard, we bring together young people from different backgrounds to interact, share ideas and have fun. We offer a wide range of cultural varieties/platforms for cross-learning that bridges the gap between theory and practice. We have as examples facilitated cultural youth rallies between Danish high school youth and JHS students in several districts.
YOUTH SPEAK UP!
YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP
YOUTH POLITICAL ACTION AND ACCOUNTABILITY
STUDY CLUBS
THE ART OF CHANGE SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
Expected Outcomes:
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3. Youth have formed strong alliances, networks, coalitions and build partnerships for collective social change. Youth are effective in mobilizing themselves for civic engagements. Youth have the capacity to shape public discourse through collective action and leadership.
Key activities:
Support and strengthen networks, alliances, and coalitions to represent youth issues (e.g. in General Assembly meetings, MTDPs, etc.). Facilitate the creation of an environment that fosters youth organizing, socializing and volunteering. Facilitate the creation of an enabling environment for the discovery and promotion of highly creative young people. Facilitate young people to become leaders driving change at all levels of development Build youth capacities in civic engagement and advocacy.
4.2 POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT INTERVENTION STRATEGIES The core of the political strategy is to build capacities and link to opportunities that enhance young people’s ability to participate in decision-making processes, take up leadership roles, be accountable as well as demand for accountability from duty bearers. This is further broken down below
Young people are marginalized when it comes to political participation and activism and largely remain at the periphery of policy development and planning and at worse without a voice. However, there is an increasing demand from the youth who want to have direct engagement with local governance institutions for improved delivery of services in their respective communities.
Our aim is to ensure that young people are equipped with the skills, tools, platforms, and capacity to participate and influence significantly the policy processes and demand for accountable and transparent governance from duty bearers from the local to national levels. We want to see youth as indispensable stakeholders who are influencing public policy decisions in a supportive youth development environment.
Objective: Young people have voice and platforms to mobilize youth and to engage duty bearers to address injustices
4.2.1 YOUTH PARLIAMENTS:
The Youth Parliament is a youth friendly accountability and participation platform initiated by young people in the Northern Region of Ghana. This product seeks to create conditions that will enable equal and active participation of both young females and males including persons with disabilities in the governance processes at the community and district levels whiles demanding accountability and responsiveness of duty bearers.
The Youth Parliament concept is also integrated with our Youth Speak Up concept to ensure that the voices of marginalized young people can be amplified and heard while bridging the information gap that exists between the adult dominated society and the youth.
4.2.2 YOUTH SPEAK UP:
Youth voices matter and therefore must be promoted to be heard on different creative platforms such as social media, radio, television and through arts. To this end, the youth is being facilitated to have their capacities build and strengthened to leverage youth issues on
radio, social media and creative arts. Using media and communication engages duty bearers and holds them accountable while promoting debate and awareness in the community..
We want young people to use media, arts, and communication creatively to mobilize other youth to speak up on issues that bother them and addressing injustices effectively with confidence and passion. We will support them with the platforms and opportunities that will enable them to learn to use communication tools and civic engagement skills, building the self – efficacy to advocate for change and be heard by both state and non – state actors.
4.2.3 YOUTH NETWORKS:
Youth mobilization and networking for collective action is critical to forming a socia movement. This will be realized with the networks of youth groups and individuals relative to issues. We want to tool and capacitate young people and create for them an enabling environment to mobilize others for collective action with duty bearers and to demand accountability with an emphasis on educational accountability and youth representation in decision – making processes with the local assemblies.
4.2.4 ART OF CHANGE:
The youth have a responsibility to hold authorities accountable and lead address issues that affect them and their society. Art has always been a powerful tool for advocacy, innovation, and creation since the beginning of time and even more so in this modern era where young people have become the silent majority. The new media bring new possibilities for creating and not least communicating your art to a wider public and thus use art to inspire debate, reflection and change.
Many examples can be cited from events in Ghana’s recent past about young creatives using their art works to cause one kind of change or another. It is in light of this inspiring evidence that the Art of Change product seeks to support young artists in Ghana to use art strategically to promote change and also create new collaborations between young artists in North and South Ghana to bridge the geographic divide and address inequalities united. YEFL works with different creatives all over Ghana in pursuit of this, facilitates art workshops for youth and holds festivals and creative workshops.
Expected Outcomes:
1. Youth demands/ensure accountability at the local and international levels 2. Youth are actively involved in platforms, voicing their concerns and interests 3. Youth participation increases in local governance decision – making processes 4. Youth use their to voice to hold duty bearers accountable
Key activities:
Build youth capacities to enable them to participate and influence decision – making processes at local and national levels Facilitate youth to create platforms to raise debates and have hands-on experience on local and national level decision making (Youth Parliaments, development debates, etc.) Develop the skills and capacities of young people to demand accountability from duty bearers. (e.g. budget tracking, scorecard methodology, monitoring of capital monitoring projects) Support youth participation in seminars, forums, and conferences at local, national and global levels. Build youth capacities in citizen journalism, use of media and arts. Facilitate youth citizen journalists’ access to platforms (i.e. virtual and physical) to amplify their voices in participatory governance from local to national. Facilitate collaboration, mapping, capacity building, mobility and public presentations of artists (photographers, filmmakers, musicians, sculptors, painters, etc.)
4.3 ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT INTERVENTION STRATEGIES
As mentioned broadly under the economic empowerment, the key focus under this strategy is to facilitate the creation of self-employment among young people by igniting their entrepreneurial mindset, creating an enabling start-up environment and establishing linkages for the purposes of advocacy and to access and participate in existing economic opportunities. This will be done through entrepreneurial skills training, information sharing, establishing linkages to existing business support opportunities, networks and creating rural entrepreneurship hubs.
Objective: Youth have the capacity to start – up their own businesses in an enabling environment
4.3.1 YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
With reference to the SDGs in our global fit, our entrepreneurship trainings will equip young people - especially young women - with skills and competencies to start up their own businesses. Our main approach is the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp Model which is a time-tested approach to training young entrepreneurs in the rural communities of the Northern Region of Ghana. The participants learn about opportunity recognition, idea generation, partnership building, business planning, branding and marketing, and running their own businesses, including soft skills such as a sense of initiative, creativity, mentoring and teamwork. These skills and competencies help them to think entrepreneurial and start their businesses.
4.3.2 YOUTH EMPLOYMENT
Youth unemployment is high which constitutes a major socio-economic challenge in Ghana. About 48% of the youth are unemployed according to the World Bank. Evidence of what works with our entrepreneurship model is used to engage government and other actors in the employment landscape to employ and/or create opportunities for youth. Also,conducting relevant research into diverse youth employment themes will form a key part of the employment strategy.
Young people need to be ready for the world of work or to be able to create their jobs. They, therefore, require some fundamental life skills which we will provide here by working with the youth, government and the private sectors to provide them with the skills set to become employable. An example has been the YouthLed Initiatives for Employment (YOUTH LIFE) implemented in partnership with CRS.
Advocacy that will create an enabling environment to make young enterprises thrive, will be conducted with networks of entrepreneurs from our target beneficiaries known as the Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs (AYE) and to consciously link them with the Ghana Chamber of Young Entrepreneurs for regional and national level advocacy. We will facilitate youth to advocate for an enabling environment (eg. Financial inclusion, support systems and favorable policy regimes for young entrepreneurs) in the entrepreneurship ecosystem in partnership with others.
Expected Outcomes:
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4. Youth start-up and sustain their businesses and have increased household income. Youth generate their resources for start-up and business development. Youth have mentors from their environment who support the entrepreneurs in their business development. Youth have a collective and enhanced voice in the entrepreneurship policy processes.
Key activities:
Provide youth with entrepreneurship and life skills Bootcamp training Provide training and setting up VSLAs for youth entrepreneurs Facilitate the formation of Alliance of Youth Entrepreneurs (AYE) to mobilize youth entrepreneurs in the region for collective action on issues that affect them. Link AYE to other networks of entrepreneurs and the media including the CJs for knowledge sharing, networking, and inspiration as well as push for policy changes for young entrepreneurs. Support AYE to participate in entrepreneurship conferences for knowledge sharing and inspiration. Provide a network for mentoring and career guidance
Want to learn more?
Read and get smarter
On our website YEFLGHANA.ORG you can find a best practive publication on a innovative and succesful project Youth Speak Up and learn who youth use media to be changemakers
Watch and learn
On our Facebook page and Youtube channel you can find videos about our young entrepreneurs, see how young artists use street art or learn a little more about our organisation
Be enterprising!
On yeflghana.org you can find our Entrepreneurship Manual that can help you to develop young entre preneurs that change their own and others’ lives.
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