The Youth-led Action Initiative
Working hand-in-hand with young people to accelerate their journey for change
The Initiative aims to accelerate the impact of young changemakers to positively transform themselves and their communities. The goal is simple: to enable young people to take action and make change. The Initiative is led by UNICEF's Adolescent Development and Participation (ADAP) team.
The Initiative positions young people not just at the centre of UNICEF’s work, but as active agents of change at the grassroots, national and global levels.
How it works | Elements of the Initiative | Cascade model | Impact
How the Youth-led Action Initiative Works
UNICEF works with country offices and partners to design and roll out the Initiative, which consists of four major elements – training, financing, mentoring, and fostering connection. At the same time, we work with the 'adults' – including government, civil society and community leaders – to galvanize their commitment to helping young people make change and leverage their influence for a more supportive change-making environment.
The Initiative was built around three key principles:
Building the systems and structures for long-term support for adolescents and young people making change, via working through local and regional networks, government offices, and other community bodies to increase their capacity to sustain, roll-out and further implement support for young changemakers. Simply put, we strive to move this work beyond UNICEF and into the hands of communities for lasting impact.
Reaching large numbers of young people, especially those hardest to reach, as a result of the unique peer-to-peer cascade model. With this approach, select adolescents and young people are trained as “Champion Trainers”. They receive guidance for returning to their communities to train and support larger cohorts of young change-makers with Youth Action Training based on the Youth Action Guide -- thus reaching large numbers of young people. With this model, UNICEF achieves what is often challenging and expensive: reaching young people deep in communities who are too often not reached by traditional programming.
Adaptability to local settings and responsive to young peoples’ specific change goals. A multitude of open-source resources, including training guides, youth-friendly training scripts, collaborative workspace and PPT slides, adaptation guidelines, templates and step-by-step checklists, safeguarding guidelines and other materials have been developed to support countries and partners (and young people themselves) to easily adapt the Initiative to their specific context.
Across all aspects of the Initiative, we have a strong focus on mental wellness.
We hear from young people around the world that to make change one must also have a strong foundation of mental wellness. We utilize UNICEF/WHO’s Helping Adolescents Thrive (HAT) evidenced-based package to build core mental health capacities for young changemakers, on topics such as: resilience for young changemakers in pursuit of a cause; recognizing emotions and how one can care for one’s emotions; understanding stress; coping with pressures; navigating challenges through problem-solving, communicating what one feels/needs and setting boundaries; determining when one needs help and finding help; and more.
The Four Elements of the Initiative
The Youth-led Action Initiative consists of four major elements, working with local networks and organizations to build their capacities and utilizing the Youth Action Guide and Workplan as key reference documents:
1. Champion Training:
A 5-day experiential training to build young changemakers’ skills in problem-solving, conflict negotiation, communication, mental health care, and action planning. Participants also learn to lead a 3-day Youth Action Training to support their peers. Additional modules, such as digital communication or mental health, are adapted to each country’s needs.
2. Funding for Action Plans:
Small financial or in-kind support helps young changemakers reach specific advocacy goals. Funding might cover items like transportation, printing costs, or venue rentals, providing a boost toward achieving broader initiatives. Availability varies by country, and not all initiatives receive funding.
3. Mentorship and Guidance:
Young people gain insights and guidance through structured mentorship and shadowing programs, with support from UNICEF country offices and partner organizations. These connections with adult and peer mentors help young advocates navigate their changemaking journeys.
4. Connecting Peer and Adult Allies:
Building networks with peers and adult allies strengthens young advocates' resilience, self-esteem, and mental health. UNICEF supports these connections at global, regional, and local levels, helping young changemakers share resources, support, and guidance in a strong action-oriented community.
The Cascade Model
The Initiative aims for a cascade of training in which young Champion Trainers who are trained as facilitators of the Youth-led Action Training go on to share their knowledge and skills with young people in their networks. These changemakers will then reach members of their community through their chose action plans and projects. For example:
- Interactive, peer-to-peer learning educates Champion Trainers on the youth-led action model and facilitation skills for planning and hosting their own sessions.
- Champion Trainers each train an additional 100 young people, for a total of 5,000 trained youth advocates.
- Assuming half of the trained youth advocates develop and implement advocacy plans that affect 20 people, that’s 50,000 people reached.
Engaging Young Champions Across the World
UNICEF has trained over 500 Champion Trainers across more than 60 countries, who have gone on to train thousands of young changemakers to take action. These young changemakers have changed local policies on child marriage, shut down illegal mines polluting the climate, advocated for the promotion of mental health in schools, mobilized young people to educate their elders on the importance of nutritious eating, created safe spaces for children to report bullying, and so much more.
