Children & Youth Dialogues

After recruiting the 20 Youth Ambassadors from five pilot countries (four kids per country) in Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi, and Malawi, the #Inclusive Young Voices (#IYV) will also mobilize young people to actively contribute and participate in in-country dialogues in those pilot countries.

SAFOD will work with its national affiliates and local universities to support in mobilizing the civil society organizations (CSOs), youths and children with disabilities, duty bearers, the media, and the private sector to participate in the dialogues.

SAFOD will also use social media to market the dialogues and mobilize participants. The #IYV will create an advocacy opportunity particularly for young people and children with disabilities; this will ensure that their participation and contribution is actively considered and included and to ensure that their views are not marginalized in broader youth-led conversations.

The intervention will allow those youths and children to make presentations on the commitments pledged by their Governments at the Global Disability Summit (GDS) 2018 and the progress their respective countries will have made. The presentations will also be on how they envision disability mainstreaming to be a priority in their countries, also sharing their experiences as social media influencers as they would be expected to have started disability awareness campaigns online and how they can get more youths and children with disabilities to be active in mainstreaming disability and calling for change.

The #IYV will create an opportunity to build capacity for young persons with disability to effectively advocate for their rights and fully participate in the upcoming GDS 2022, with clear Calls to Action. Youth and children with disability who participate in the #IYV will also discuss the lessons they will have learnt on using social media and other online tools to advocate for the rights of young persons with disabilities.

This project has come at the right time when the world has moved to engaging virtually and tapping onto the opportunities that are available online as well as strengthening digitizing disability rights advocacy to catch up with the digital era of advocacy and communication. Therefore. the in-country dialogues will also strengthen national youth engagements, and build national databases, WhatsApp groups, and other social media groups for continued engagements and dissemination of information.