Strengthening Youth-Led Movements
Youth Action Lab is a one year co-creation lab for grassroots youth
activists based in the global south which works to support their
movements to become more resilient and sustainable in their pursuit of a
more equitable world. The Lab is an innovative, safe, active,
inclusive, collective, representative and connected space, online and
physical for grassroots activists, which thoughtfully considers diverse
contexts and ecosystems to better resource them to flourish with their
communities.
Participants in the Lab work to build political
solidarity and networks, strengthen capacities in engaging with policy
processes, and access resources to support their movement. The Lab will
act as a hub for testing new ways of working within civil society and
mobilizing learnings from across sectors in support of youth-led
movements
The Youth Action Lab is a pilot project supported by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). This initiative is part of CIVICUS Youth and Civil Society Resourcing workstreams to build a more resilient, effective, safe and diverse civil society in the 21st Century
The Challenge
people are facing increasing barriers and threats to their activism.
Youth-led movements are unable to access sustainable resourcing, lack
the technical capacity and networks to engage with political systems,
and continue to work in silos, separated from other movements and
activists across geographies, movements, and causes.
Often times,
these barriers and existing hierarchies in civil society often position
youth as foot soldiers and not as change agents. Through extensive
research and consultation with stakeholders, CIVICUS has come to
understand that designing an alternative resourcing mechanism that
centers meaningful youth participation is imperative to achieve a
sustainable, resilient, and inclusive civil society. Our solution to the
aforementioned problems is launching a Youth Action Lab, an
experimentation lab for ten young activists based in the Global South
(Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa,
Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Pacific) that would support them in
being more sustainable and resilient in their activism.
How It Works
1. Accessing Resources
Lab will provide participants with an unrestricted microgrant of up to
$2499 USD, access to in-kind support and other non-financial resources,
as well as capacity strengthening in order to support more sustainable
and resilient movements.
2. Developing Strategy
Lab will provide opportunities for capacity strengthening through
peer-to-peer learning, coaching, and skill-building workshops with the
aim of supporting youth activists to be more strategic and targeted in
their campaigning.
3. Building Alliances
Lab, through an in-person residency and regular peer learning sessions,
will create spaces for movements and collectives of young people to
connect, share experiences, and heal together, in order to build
stronger alliances and more connected movements
Still have questions? Please see our Frequently Asked Questions
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE OPEN THIA LINK
https://www.civicus.org/index.php/what-we-do/strengthen/youth-action-lab#
