Young Cities is a global programme that connects young people with local governments, building trust and creating opportunities to challenge hate, polarisation, disinformation and extremism.
find out moreWe work in nine cities across Kenya, Lebanon, Senegal and North Macedonia, connecting young activists to municipal decision-makers. Our goal is to create and enhance youth-led solutions to community challenges.
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Our support for young people does not stop when their initiatives end. The Young Cities model provides ongoing mentorship and enables further funding for successful projects. Nothing speaks more to this model of sustainable impact than the two local organisations founded by Young Cities alumni in coastal Kenya between 2018 and 2020.
In 2018, Young Cities connected a group of young women in the sub-county of Mvita, Mombasa. They produced the evocative “#WhatIf?” video campaign on how different community members can prevent gang recruitment. In November 2018, the group formally became a part of the Counties Action Network organisation and introduced programming to advance youth civic engagement and civic rights. The team’s leadership earned them a spot on the Young Cities Coaches programme to mentor other young people interested in community cohesion work.
Among those young people was a team of school friends who developed the “Jijulishe Jiwezeshe” project in 2020 with the support of Young Cities. Their project aimed to foster solutions to address youth unemployment. Like the Counties Action Network, the group wanted to further their impact in their community. In November 2020, they decided to formally register as the organisation, “Kigoda Pwani”, which they are now using as a platform to continue their work in addressing youth-related issues in Kenya.
On the 4th August 2020, the world watched in horror as a deadly explosion rocked Beirut, Lebanon’s capital.
With the support of the Norwegian MFA, Young Cities redirected City Initiative funding of more than £20,000 and provided training and resources. This enabled young people from across Lebanon to distribute over 8,000 meals and 100 food boxes, volunteer as nurses giving medical aid, and renovate more than 15 houses.
The youth volunteers were tireless in their commitment, additionally cleaning streets and helping to rebuild the lives of the city’s residents.
View City Initiative
Young Cities has supported a team of former young offenders in Dakar, Senegal, in producing a documentary to raise awareness about the stigmatisation of conviction in their communities and the consequences it has for recidivism and crime.
The documentary captures a series of interviews and testimonies from former young offenders, families and police officers. They discuss the challenge of reintegrating young men as they leave prison and the importance of community in keeping them from reoffending.
The documentary has received local acclaim from the community, municipal government and other young people, having been screened in multiple locations. The team are currently working on translating the subtitles into English for wider dissemination.
View Project
A team led by local rapper is uplifting the voices of other young musicians to use their art as a form of activism to prevent youth joining gangs.
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A team of young people channelled their creativity through an arts magazine run by young artists, to address various social issues.
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A project platforming women role-models to encourage other women in the municipalities of Čair and Kisela Voda to challenge gender-based discrimination and empower themselves despite the barriers they face.
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This Handbook has been funded with support from the European Commission. It was created by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) to help anyone looking to evaluate their counter-narrative campaigns, and is intended as a beginner’s guide for those with little or no previous experience of counter-narrative campaign evaluation. It…
downloadThis Handbook, developed by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and funded by Public Safety Canada through the Kanishka Project, was created to help anyone looking to proactively respond to extremist propaganda with counter-narrative campaigns, and is intended as a beginner’s guide for those with little or no previous experience of counter-narrative campaigning.…
downloadISD’s Impact of Counter Narratives report presents the development, deployment, and evaluation of three counter- narrative campaigns orchestrated by the Against Violent Extremism network and Jigsaw (an incubator within Alphabet that uses technology to address geopolitical issues) with additional in-kind and financial support from Facebook and Twitter. The report provides fresh evidence…
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If you would like to find out more about our impact, or would like to discuss future opportunities, we would love to hear from you.
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