Youth voices turn into action in Europe and Central Asia
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On International Youth Day 2021, youth activists reflected on Generation Equality and spoke to UN Women about their recent youth engagement campaign.
UN Women’s celebration of International Youth Day recognizes the power of youth activists. Building on the momentum of Generation Equality, the UN Women Europe and Central Asia regional youth engagement roadmap is co-created and co-lead by UN Women and youth. Young activists share their experience:
The youth must be the key drivers and accelerators to achieve gender equality. We must transform feminist spaces to challenge inequalities and ensure meaningful, substantive participation.
What do we want? The #YOUthDemand campaign
To ensure profound change, our demands should be loud and clear. Created and led by youth, the #YOUthDemand social media campaign amplified young change makers’ voices across the region to highlight our ideas and demands for a more equal future for women and girls. Promoted on UN Women Europe and Central Asia social media accounts for two weeks, with active participation by regional influencers, social media gurus, and young feminist activists, the #YOUthDemand campaign’s results were presented to the decision-makers at the #YOUthDemand Gender Equality event at the Generation Equality Forum in Mexico that took place in March.
How can we lead? #YOUthLead workshops
Young people’s passion and ideas can transform systems. But we need more. We need tools, skills and knowledge to lead, mobilize and manage campaigns. To that end, 25 youth activists from across Europe and Central Asia attended five weeks of #YOUthLead workshops that gave them a unique digital space to learn, build and co-create activities to mobilize their communities towards gender equality.
"Thanks to the engaging and inclusive atmosphere created by our #YOUthLead facilitators, I felt encouraged to freely share my ideas and to be ambitious with my plans.
"Generation Equality cannot exist without meaningful youth participation. For me, #YouthLead was a great example of meaningful partnership with youth. Such initiatives are hugely important because they allow youth to reveal their potential as leaders and creators of change. #YouthLead created sustainable opportunities for youth in my region and supported us not by words, but by concrete actions.”
We have ambition. We have good ideas. We have skills. We have tools. Our next step? To act now to build an equal future.
#YOUthAct projects allowed workshop participants to build gender equality initiatives on important regional issues. Activists designed projects on their own and prepared proposals, focusing on gender-related problems. Granted seed funds to run their projects, they created eight inspiring #YOUthAct initiatives:
Listen to more amazing #YOUthAct stories as told by the youth who created and are leading them:
A majority of #YOUthAct projects are finalized or are near completion. The projects have successfully reached out to hundreds of young people, teaching them skills, providing training, and creating informative, youth-friendly digital content in local languages on prominent gender-related problems. They use story-telling as a safe and powerful tool for sharing.
"Working on our #YOUthAct project, Periodhood, I felt the motivation and support of my peers to achieve gender equality in our communities, an important part of the puzzle to achieve gender equality worldwide.
#YOUthAct Talk Show highlights youth initiatives
We wanted to share our journey with other young activists and actors who play an important role in achieving gender equality. We created a talk show and named it after our chapter: #YOUthAct Talk Show. On the road towards the Generation Equality Forum in Paris we featured our initiatives and created a multi-stakeholder dialogue led by youth.
Hosted by acclaimed Turkish journalist Afşin Yurdakul, the #YOUthAct Talk Show welcomed Miriam Julieta Huacani Zapana, Vice Minister of Equal Opportunities from Bolivia, and Charlotte LeFlufy, Always, Whisper & Orkid Social Impact Director ofProcter & Gamble. Combining an interactive board with street interviews from around the world, we amplified youth voices. Here is what young people from Turkmenistan, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Bolivia had to say:
Turkmenistan:
UK:
Turkey & Bolivia:
"#YouthAct offered a valuable opportunity for me to find like-minded people to highlight youth action in our countries and identify innovative solutions to discrimination, violence against women, limited access to health services and economic empowerment of rural women.
