Saturday, 21 January 2017
Monday, 2 January 2017
Happy New Year and Welcome to 2017
Dear NAYD members,
The start of the New Year is a time to reflect on the ups and downs
of the previous year and to set the direction for the journey ahead. NAYD
continues to grow its membership with now well over 70,000 members. More of us
are holding hands across the world. Like all previous years though 2016 was a
rollercoaster ride with amazing progress made but a few pitfalls along the way.
#NAYDSDGs
On January 2 2016 African youth leaders gathered on Facebook to
discuss Agenda 2030, a global mission to leave no one behind, driven by 17 Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). Its a great ambition but the UN considered African rural communities
the weak link in this ambition. Our meeting discussed how we as youth could
impact African rural communities with these new goals and concluded that NAYD's
wide network of rural community activists throughout the Continent was well
placed to help drive Agenda 2030 into these communities. Over the next few
months mixed-gender teams were formed throughout the Continent who in turn
started developing wide reaching stakeholder networks. A Facebook chat was
created as a forum to discuss issues faced and progress made. The chat has an
automatic translate facility to help conversations with different languages.
Members also freely offered their time to translate into Portuguese and French.
A steering group oversaw the initiative and helped country teams develop action
plans. A BLOG was created for members to post their activities and a Google
map to show the locations of their SDG
activities.
The #NAYDSDGs initiative was
recognised by UN DESA in May as SDG17, Partnership for Development with individual
country teams included as part of the initiative. Partnerships have been formed
with national, continental and global organisations to hold hands with us to
help drive the initiative forward. By the end of 2016 most African countries
have #NAYSDSGs teams overseen and supported by a steering group. We have
applied for a continental Energy Globe award for 2017 in the category of Youth - wish us luck!
NGO of the month
Congratulations to the NGOs of the Month in 2016:
1.
January - Supreme Malawi
2. February - Farm Solutions 365 - Uganda
3.
March - National Association of
Youth Organisations - Zimbabwe
4. April- Rwanda Initiative for Sustainable Development
(RISD) - Rwanda
5. May- Federation of Liberian Youth (FLY) - Liberia
6. June-
Gender and Livelihoods Opportunities for Rural Youth (GLORY) - Uganda
7. July- Dentistes
de Sud - Guinea
8. August- Jeunesse Unie pour le
Progrès et le Développement (JUPD) - Benin
9.
September-
EducommunicAfrik -
Burkina Faso
10. October - Power for all -
continental
11. November- Farm Solutions
365 - Uganda
12. December - Hope Land Congo
- DRC
NGO's of the month will also receive a
NAYD certificate signed by Pochi, Paul and Judy.
#NAYDchat
We have had a successful year engaging
with young changemakers working in climate action advocacy, accountability in
public resources, and in engaging the community in social change. It’s been an
inspiring year of learning from young people doing great work in their
communities. Past chats can be seen here #NAYDchat as we prepare for another year of
engaging with you.
Starting January 2017, our online
magazine INSPIRE will be produced four times in a year (January, April, July,
October). Each of the 4 issues will focus on a particular theme and will
include articles and pictures from young people in Africa. In 2016 we produced
a special SDGs edition
In Conversation with Series
In February 2016, NAYD started a new
series featuring expert opinion on topical issues such as Citizen-led
Accountability, Online Activism, Community Engagement for Social Change and
Active Youth for Community Development in Africa. All these features can be
found at In Conversation Series. You can expect more in-depth
conversations in 2017 from key thought leaders across the world.
Live Google Hangouts
How did NAYD inspire you in 2016?
Thaddeus Ugoh, Human Rights & community
development advocate (Nigeria)
'NAYD
has really inspired me to sensitize people at the grassroots level to track
and monitor public projects in the budget by engaging their representatives
to deliver service. This has really strengthened accountability and
transparency in local communities'
|
Uadamen Ilevbaoje (Nigeria)
Mary-Christabel Yaje (Cameroon)
“NAYD has inspired me to be active in community empowerment through
capacity building programs and to be part of the source of joy to individuals
and communities whose faces shine with contentment and joy as a result of the
knowledge impacted”
Nicholas (Kenya)
“As a social worker I took a leading role in making sure that the girl
child has an opportunity to quality education”
Arthur Michael Kanjere (Malawi)
“I have been inspired by others to be active”
Patrick Chinguwo (Malawi)
2017: Projects and Activities
These, among others, are the projects we are looking forward to in
2017:
·
Capacity Building Workshop – top of the agenda for 2017 is to
hold the workshop that will bring team members and partners together.
·
Monitoring & Benchmarking SDGs - We have been trying
to find ways to monitor and report progress made by youth in implementing the
SDGs in the rural communities with no success so far. To address this issue,
NAYD has decided to develop a tool for benchmarking and monitoring the SDGs in
rural communities. We are excited to work with volunteers from the NAYD
community to build a tool that can help us examine how we are doing and
motivate us to work more to effectively implement the SDGs.
·
17 Experts in SDGs – we are in the process of coming up
with 17 experts who are well versed in the 17
areas covered by the SDGs to advise us as we progress with our efforts
to work with youth to implement these goals. Do you have the relevant knowledge and are you involved in rural
community development? Please email help@nayd.org with a brief CV.
·
Research Desk - To authoritatively comment on
issues affecting young people in Africa, NAYD is setting up a research desk of
researchers led by a senior researcher who will oversee our research projects.
If you are a researcher keep an eye out for our call for applications.
·
INSPIRE January Issue – the first issue of INSPIRE 2017
will be produced in January. It will focus on the theme Youth & Politics in Africa.
At NAYD we have always maintained an apolitical stance but we know development
and politics are closely related, for this reason we want to find out the
experiences of youth engaged in politics, reasons why youth do not run for
political office, reasons why youth are often ‘used’ by politicians,
experiences with campaigns, civic education. Email us your stories with the
subject line: Inspire Youth & Politics at annetjudy@yahoo.com
·
Your ideas – Finally, we always welcome ideas from our community members. Let us hear your ideas
and we will collaboratively bring them to light. Tweet us at @NAYDinfo or email us at help@nayd.org.
Finally, THANK YOU to all our members. It is truly inspiring to read your
stories and see your pictures from across the continent. Every action in your community makes a
difference to someone's life and inspires others to get involved. This is the
way to a sustainable future, a future where no-one is left behind.
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