Youth Take the Lead Programme

Inspiring Young Leaders Across Tanzania

Youth Take the Lead (YTL) Programme was established in 2019 with a goal to cultivate youth leadership through volunteer exchanges across Restless Development Hubs. Despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the programme has thrived, focusing on enhancing youth leadership, advocacy, and promoting global agendas.

Program Overview

  • Goal: To increase meaningful engagement of young people and their inclusion in civil society and decision-making spaces.
  • Target Group: Youth and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)

Sharpening Youth leadership skills

Youth Take the Lead (YTL) promotes meaningful youth engagement practices in CSOs and youth leadership among stakeholders in Nepal, Tanzania and South Africa (2019-2020). YTL also executes effective mobilization of alumni for implementation of advocacy initiatives.

Funded by the Norwegian Agency for Exchange Cooperation (NOREC), the programme has achieved significant milestones despite challenges:

Major Successes

  • Partnership Building: Strengthened relationships between CSOs and local government bodies, enhancing professional development opportunities for participants.
  • Knowledge Generation: Gathered valuable insights on meaningful youth engagement, CSO operations, and best practices.
  • Capacity Building: Supported young leaders with advocacy skills, resulting in positive community impacts and improved CSO operations.

Achievements

  • Advocacy Impact: YTL participants have trained young people in advocacy and ICT for development, empowering them to drive change in their communities.
  • Capacity Strengthening: Conducted assessments with Civil Society Organisations to enhance operational efficiency and youth engagement strategies.
  • Innovation and Collaboration: Fostered new ideas to improve partner engagement and expand Restless Development’s outreach.
1,092
Young People Reached