As the HLA adopts a transformational response and progressive localisation approach, strengthening the capacity of the young leaders is a vital step to achieving this agenda. We partnered with Ashoka and Save the Children to start Youth Leadership for Emerging future programme. This initiative brings together 40 young leaders (19 – 35 y.o.) from Ukraine, Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia with the aim to empower and encourage them to share their knowledge and experience, and to build an international network of young changemakers.
We recognise that young people play a vital and incredibly important role in crisis response by providing support to those in need and facilitating collaborative efforts for the common good during crises. The humanitarian sector needs to include a younger generation of humanitarians to response and provide conditions for their innovative ideas and solutions to address the complexities of local and global crises.
The programme includes both online and in-person elements. The first offline meetings in Warsaw and Prague helped the participants to get to know each other, start creating connections and exchanging ideas, and develop the sense of community. These offline meetings support one of the main goals of the initiative – fostering collaboration and creating resilient local communities.
Throughout the programme, the young leaders will have online workshops by experienced facilitators on a number of topics such as crisis risk reduction and management cycle, wellbeing, teamwork and allyship, and more. The participants of the programme will also collaboratively work on implementation of the projects on social cohesion.
There are two aspects of this program that excite me the most: first is empowering the voice of young leaders and equipping them with the tools to be ready for what the future will bring. The second is that humanitarian action must go beyond the basic needs and stability of livelihood, it must provide assistance in a way to empower everyone to create change, to build an ‘Everyone a changemaker’ world.
This process is focused on multi-stakeholder collaboration and will lead to creating four new solutions that will be implemented by young leaders with the grants for cooperation from Youth Leadership for Emerging Future programme.
