Leadership without authority
UPSHIFT mentors like Credo Gansou are redefining leadership and fueling a global ecosystem of youth-led innovation
What does a private sector executive in Ukraine, a Deaf fashion designer in Ghana, and a community facilitator in Jordan have in common?
They are all part of UPSHIFT’s global network of mentors — people from vastly different backgrounds who guide young people to turn ideas into action. From shaping solutions grounded in market needs, mentoring through lived experience, and delivering the programme in schools, youth centres, and refugee camps, they form the human infrastructure that enables youth innovation to take root and scale.
Mentorship sits at the heart of UPSHIFT’s mission. Across 58 countries, more than 7 million young people have graduated from its learning journey, supported by a growing ecosystem of mentors and facilitators who bring the UPSHIFT methodology into local systems across the world.
In Kosovo and Ukraine, private sector leaders stepped into UPSHIFT innovation challenges as mentors, bringing practical experience, market and community expertise, and helping bridge the gap between learning and employment.
In countries such as Jordan, trained facilitators drawn from communities themselves deliver UPSHIFT in non-formal education settings, while in Bhutan and India, teachers deliver UPSHIFT within classrooms. Through this approach, UPSHIFT invests in the systems that sustain mentorship. More than 250,000 teachers worldwide have been trained to deliver the methodology in schools.
Mentorship evolving over time
In 2021, Credo Gansou, a climate advocate from Benin, was weighing two great opportunities. One would take him to Glasgow for COP26 through a fully funded programme offered by Benin’s Ministry of Sustainable Development — a rare chance for a young climate activist to step onto a global stage. The other was closer to home: an invitation to work with UNICEF’s UPSHIFT social innovation programme for young people.
The timing meant he could not do both, and Credo chose UPSHIFT.
At the time, he was already engaged in climate justice and youth activism in Benin through his work with Pauly Afrique Bio, an NGO focused on ecosystem restoration and climate education for children and young people. But he was looking for practical tools to support young people in designing solutions themselves.
“I was active; I was engaged,” he says. “But I wanted to understand how to turn commitment into structured, lasting impact — especially with and for young people.”
That year, Credo was trained in the UPSHIFT methodology through a programme led by BSF Burundi. Alongside 14 other young leaders, he learned design thinking and how to guide adolescents through innovation processes in their own communities.
“UPSHIFT taught me leadership without authority,” he reflects. “You are not there to give answers. You are there to create the conditions for others to find them.”
By 2024, Credo had returned to the programme as a mentor in Benin, facilitating innovation workshops for more than 100 adolescents.
One of the teams he mentored tackled an issue affecting many young people in their community: the stigma surrounding sexual and reproductive health, and the consequences it can have for adolescents navigating relationships, early pregnancy, and social stigma. Over 12 weeks, the team designed and produced a ten-episode television mini-series addressing these realities. The adolescents wrote, filmed, and performed the series themselves, working through disagreements and creative challenges along the way.
“There were times when people stopped speaking to each other,” Credo recalls. “That is when I realized leadership is not about having the strongest idea — it is about holding people together long enough to reach one.”
When the series aired nationally, families began recognizing their children on screen. The project sparked conversations in households and communities, showing how young people could shape the narratives that affect their lives. For Credo, the experience reinforced the potential he had first seen when he chose UPSHIFT years earlier.
“UPSHIFT is a powerful tool that instils a solution-oriented mindset,” he says. “Young people can shape the future they want to live in through this kind of approach.”
The multiplying effect of mentorship
UPSHIFT mentors like Credo are one of the key engines of scale for UPSHIFT. Each trained mentor supports multiple teams of adolescents. Those young people go on to influence families, schools, and communities. In some cases, mentorship also leads to concrete opportunities, like internships or apprenticeships through private sector partners.
Together, they form the human infrastructure that carry the UPSHIFT methodology into different contexts, allowing the model to spread, adapt locally, and continue generating impact for young people around the world.
