When I boarded the plane to Nairobi, I was feeling so many emotions at once, excited, nervous, curious, and honestly a little scared. This was my first time ever travelling outside Somalia.
For someone who has always cared deeply about children’s health and young people’s voices in my community, being selected to join the UNICEF Youth Mobilisation Lab felt huge. As a medical graduate, child health and wellbeing are not just causes I care about, they are also closely connected to what I studied and the future I hope to contribute to. Even so, I still had many questions in my mind. Was I ready for this? Would my ideas matter? Would I be able to speak confidently in a room with people from different countries?
Looking back now, I am so glad I went. Over four days in Nairobi, I met incredible young people from around the world who, like me, care deeply about children’s wellbeing. Even though we came from different backgrounds and experiences, we connected so quickly because we all shared one thing: the belief that young people should be part of creating change.
One of the first activities we did was called My Autobiography, where we shared our personal stories and journeys. That session stayed with me because it reminded me that our experiences matter. Sometimes we think advocacy is about having perfect words or being an expert, but often it starts simply with telling the truth about what we’ve seen and lived.
Coming from Somalia, I have seen how difficult it can be for families to access healthcare. Many mothers and children still face challenges getting essential services, including immunization, nutrition support, and maternal healthcare. As someone who studied medicine, these issues feel especially personal to me because they connect directly to the kind of work I hope to do in the future. So when we discussed child survival, maternal and newborn health, and immunization, the conversations felt very real. These are not just global issues I read about, they are things affecting families in my own country every day.
Before this experience, I thought advocacy mostly meant speaking passionately about something you care about. But the Youth Mobilisation Lab helped me realise it’s much more than that. Advocacy also means being prepared. It means understanding the issue well, knowing how to communicate clearly, listening to others, and working together to push for solutions.
I especially enjoyed the communication sessions. Learning about public speaking and media engagement made me think differently about how we use our voices. Passion is important, yes, but if we want leaders and decision-makers to truly listen, we also need to know how to share our message in a way that connects.
What made the experience even more inspiring was the opportunity to take part in discussions linked to the World Health Summit Regional Meeting in Nairobi, where leaders, innovators, and changemakers were exploring the future of Africa’s health systems. As a young medical graduate from Somalia, being in that space was both exciting and humbling. It made me realise that young people should not just observe important global conversations, we should be ready to contribute meaningfully to them.
I arrived in Nairobi with passion. I left with purpose. And maybe most importantly, I left believing even more strongly that being young does not mean waiting for permission to make change happen.
