About #IYV
The ‘#Inclusive-Young-Voices’ is a four-month regional project implemented by the Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD), piloted in five countries, namely Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Zambia, and Malawi.
The project aims to provide a platform for youth and children with disabilities to use social media and other online tools to advocate for the effective mainstreaming of disability within national and regional youth/children development frameworks in the SADC region. It also seeks to digitize disability rights advocacy to catch up with the digital era of advocacy and communication.
Writers Competition
SAFOD is setting up a cluster of children and youth advocates with disabilities in five pilot countries who can identify critical issues affecting them through the project. These kids create authentic and compelling messages that call to action decision-makers and influencers at the national and regional levels. SAFOD is selecting four children or youths with disabilities per country to form a total of Youth Ambassadors. SAFOD is using a competitive process to choose these Youth Ambassadors through the Writers Competition. Learn more about the Writers Competition Here.
Child Safeguarding
To kick start the project, UNICEF conducted a virtual training workshop for SAFOD staff on 26 November 2021, focused mainly on child safeguarding procedures and best practices for working with children. However, considering that the SAFOD affiliates implement most of SAFOD’s activities on the ground, the training that UNICEF offered SAFOD staff was considered the training of trainers (TOT). Thus, SAFOD will tranfer the skills gained to the affiliates and help them develop institutional policies on the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA).
Assessement Survey
SAFOD has rolled out the #IYV project with an assessment survey targeting youths and children with disabilities within the five countries to identify the capacity of OPDs on child safeguarding policies. In addition, the youth and children participate in Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and one-on-one interviews aimed at assessing the capacity of children and youths with disabilities and their Organizations of People with Disabilities (OPDs) to use online e-tools, including social media, to run disability mainstreaming campaigns.
#IYC Webinar
However, SAFOD will officially launch the project by hosting a half-day regional webinar via Zoom and streamed on Facebook live to ensure full participation of youth, children, and other stakeholders.
The webinar’s goal is to provide a platform to share and amplify youth and children’s voices about disability rights, issues they are passionate about and share their knowledge, expertise, insights, and experience with other kids regionally.
The webinar will also seek to promote an online campaign on how social media and other online tools can be used as an advocacy tool, particularly now that the world is battling to control COVID-19.
The webinar will create an opportunity for youth and children and other stakeholders to connect and engage in an open and transparent dialogue on how to accelerate progress towards the realization of the rights of youth with disabilities and build consensus on strategic roles and commitments and call to action leaders and influencers on elevating disability rights for youth and children. The webinar will serve as a space for youth to interact both in plenary and breakout formats, generating insights into the most impactful issues for young persons with disabilities. A key output from the webinar will be a regional youth database which will strengthen future regional youth engagements such as the upcoming GDS 2022, and effective coordination, collaboration, and communication, particularly amongst youth with disabilities. Learn more about the #IYV Webinar Here.