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In November 2023, we established a collaborative initiative with Restless Development to conduct a campaign with youth from East Africa. The campaign’s aim is to combat the global food crisis by fostering public awareness, with the ultimate goal of influencing decision-makers. 

We identified and enlisted 30 young leaders, encompassing 15 individuals from Kenya and 15 from Tanzania between the ages of 18 and 28. These selected individuals are a diverse cohort, including young advocates proactively addressing hunger-related challenges and studying food security dynamics within their communities amid the pressures of climate change. The recruited participants represent a spectrum of stakeholders, namely:

• Youth leaders affiliated with CSOs
• Climate activists
• Media representatives
• Farmers, particularly those involved in cooperatives.

Key Activities

1. Engaging in a three-day training workshop focused on advocacy skills development.
2. Arranging an X Space reflecting post-COP28 on the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action and the role of youth.
3. Hosting an in-country meeting aimed at dialoguing with policymakers regarding the significant challenges young individuals encounter amidst the global food crisis. This is to be conducted in January 2024
4. Identifying and nominating two food champions within the East African Legislative Assembly. This is to be carried out between January and March 2024.

Three-day workshop

We organized a comprehensive three-day training workshop, assembling members of the youth campaign team to fortify their skills and knowledge in advocacy.

Day 1:

• We conducted an orientation session detailing the scope and objectives of the Hungry for Action global campaign.
• We collaborated with young activists to co-create and contextualize the campaign, strategizing its implementation in Kenya and Tanzania.

Day 2 and Day 3:

• We delivered tailored capacity-building sessions focusing on advocacy techniques encompassing digital and traditional campaigning.
• We provided media training to equip participants for potential interactions with media outlets.

Training Outcomes:

During the sessions, participants collectively devised several advocacy concepts, reflecting the imminent food crisis in their respective communities. In Tanzania, the teams developed advocacy asks around addressing child wasting and access to finance for youth. In Kenya, their advocacy plans centered around the high cost of food and the poor participation of young people in agriculture.

X  Space

Restless Development will host an X Space on 18 December 2023 with five speakers from diverse backgrounds. They will reflect on commitments made during COP28 and the role of youth in the transformation of food systems. These include members of the Hungry for Action youth campaign team from Kenya and Tanzania, a policy maker from Tanzania, and a representative from the SDG2 advocacy hub.

In 2024, our focus remains on nurturing Restless Development’s youth members as ongoing champions for food security. We are co-creating a plan to further efforts in fundraising endeavours with both cohorts. We aim to construct a robust organizational framework that effectively magnifies our endeavours addressing key thematic areas. During the campaign meeting on 17 January 2024, two spokespersons will speak about their work plans for the year and how they will engage with different stakeholders to hold public-facing campaigns.

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