Youth Community of Interest (YCOI)
ActionAid’s strategy 2028, “Action for Global Justice”, prioritises the leadership of women and young people, especially those living in poverty and exclusion, in its efforts to achieve social justice, gender equality and poverty eradication.
Connect
We connect those who work for youth-led action in ActionAid and beyond.
There are various ways to connect with our work. You can join us on Facebook here. We also have an email list and a WhatsApp group. To join either of these please email us at YCOI@actionaid.org
Share knowledge
YCOI Café
Our Youth Community of Interest Café is a non-formal monthly webinar, where we learn with and from each other on topics related to youth-led action. Each month features a co-host, who will share key lessons and facilitate discussions.
Newsletter: The Young Activist
Stay updated on what’s rumbling with youth-led action in ActionAid and our partners by signing up here.
Trainings
YCOI hosts and shares opportunities for training. Stay updated on Facebook, WhatsApp and email.
Take Action
We take action and co-operate on supporting youth-led action.
COVID-19 Youth-led Response Fund
The fund provides small, fast and flexible financial support to young people in the frontlines of COVID-19 response. (Funding is not available for salaries.) You can apply for funding by completing this online form.
We believe in youth-led action for climate justice, feminist learning and organising and human rights defenders. We support mobilising activities, public education, advocacy, capacity building, campaigning and activism – and other actions by and with young people that pushes for a just and sustainable world.
There are a number of useful documents about our approach to youth activism. These include:
- ActionAid's approach to youth programming - a fundamental force for development
- Shifting power to young people - how young people can lead and drive solutions in humanitarian action
- Youth Programming Toolkit
- ActionAid's youth engagement plan.
There are plenty of other resources that are useful to those seeking to engage in, or promote, youth activism. Below is a selection.
- Beautiful Trouble - creative campaign tools
- 350.org - tools for campaigning with a focus on climate
- MobLab - building the power of changemakers to confront today's greatest challenges
- RiseUp - provides online communication tools for people and groups working on liberatory social change
- Reflection/Action - reflection/action tools to help create an open, democratic environment in which everyone is able to contribute
- Crime Thinc - is everything that evades control: the daydream in the classroom, the renegade breaking ranks, the spray-painted walls that continue to speak even under martial law. It is the persistent sense that things could be otherwise, that there is nothing natural or inevitable about the prevailing social order
- Tactical Tech - is an international NGO that engages with citizens and civil-society organisations to explore and mitigate the impacts of technology on society
- Get Up, Rise Up fund - direct action fund to support activists globally to shift power through nonviolent direct actions
- Civicus – toolkits and guides.