From Subject to Citizen : Young Leaders from Africa meet once more to advance S2C project.

Date: 16 March 2011

20 young leaders from 8 different countries have met in Naivasha, Kenya, for one more S2C’s Ambassadors Training in its 3rd year of implementation.

The program “From Subject to Citizens” aims at developing the civic competences of young leaders in order to equip the youth in responding to today’s challenges in Africa. The project’s concept focuses on programs such as “Transformative Masculinity”, “Youth Justice”, “Civic Action” and “Economic Renaissance”.

The ambassadors are prepared to understand the concept of S2C and are invited to implement it in their communities and YMCA activities. The development of this new generation of young leaders for Africa takes 4 years and combines annual trainings and a mentoring process.

The program in Naivaisha, from 5th to 8th of March, focused on “Communicating and Influencing for Change” provided by YMCA facilitators, experts in their areas of competence. This program provided communication tools as well as methods of initiating change to the ambassadors.

A video competition, as the practical approach to the theme, also took place in Naivasha. The ambassadors were invited to use their creativity to communicate the S2C concept by producing short videos to be used in mobilizing people and resources around the project. The result of this process will be published in social networks in the upcoming days.

The event was concluded by a gala dinner in Nairobi with the presence of Kenyan authorities such as the Minister of Anti-Corruption of Kenya, diplomats from all over the continent, entrepreneurs and YMCA leadership.

The S2C ambassadors were recognized for their work and the winners of the video competitions were announced completing the success of the night and celebrating the advance of the program all over Africa.

S2C has already mobilized more than 4300 youth through the ambassadors and 43 are already involved in leadership positions in their YMCAs on local and national level.

Get to know more about youth empowerment in Africa accessing the
Africa Alliance of YMCAs website.

By Romulo Dantas (World Alliance of YMCAs, Brazil/Switzerland) and Sarah Simmank (Germany)