Taking Roots, Branching Out - 4Youth Inception Meeting
4Youth - Taking Roots, Branching Out
On February 28th and 1st March 2019, a meeting was held in Bangkok, Thailand where regional and global youth networks came together to kick off the ‘Taking Roots, Branching Out’ project. The inception meeting brought together Youth LEAD, Y+ (Y Plus Network), Y-PEER (Asia Pacific Centre) and Youth RISE, a youth consortium formed under the Robert Carr Fund Grant for 2019 – 2021. Also known between youth consortium members, the name 4Youth was formally adopted as the official name of the alliance between the networks. Working towards a progressive, youth-collaborative next few years, 4Youth aims to collaborate on projects, share existing resources, learn from each others’ networks and strengthen the capacity of youth leaders working on various young key population issues.
12 participants, six from Youth LEAD, two from Y-PEER, two from Youth RISE and two from Y+ discussed and strategised the implementation of activities of the grant for the upcoming year. With a culturally diverse group of young people bringing in expertise and experiences from Burundi, Nepal, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Viet Nam United Kingdom, Ireland and Mongolia, the meeting provided a great platform for learning and development.
Jennifer Ho, Deputy Director of APCASO and Michela Polesana, UNAIDS Regional Support Team for the Asia Pacific, paid a visit to provide guidance and insight into RCF’s history, foundation and structure – to participants who were unfamiliar with the grant and how RCF operates as a funding agency. Jennifer, who is also part of the Program Advisory Panel (PAP) for RCF allowed participants to better understand the organisational structure of RCF, and took time to answer questions from the participants.
Participants later split into their respective organisations to develop a work plan for the remainder of 2019. Each organisation presented its proposed work plan to the consortium and discussed potential areas of collaboration based on each organisations area of expertise. Some key areas of collaboration included potential training sessions, such as a global training of trainers, a discussion surrounding regions of focus for 2019 and how the consortium can support each other’s efforts, strengthening the organisations themselves in terms of administration tools and policies, and many more.
In the first half of the second-day session, time was spent further developing the 2019 work plans for each consortium member. During the second half of the session, there was discussion amongst the consortium members surrounding logistical aspects of both the RCF and how the consortium members themselves will work together. Here, the members discussed their communication strategies, reporting requirements, small grants, and monitoring and evaluation.
Wrapping up the two-day inception meeting, each organisation provided comments and feedback. Youth RISE expressed their hopes to grow and strengthen their organisation through their partnership with 4Youth, and similarly, Y-PEER is excited to see how consortium members can collaborate on future projects. Youth LEAD and Y+ both commented on wanting to showcase the work of youth-led organisation at the global level, and being that is, this is the only youth-led grant for RCF 2019 -2021, 4Youth is hoping to demonstrate its capacity to create positive change.
Later this year, in August 2019, 4Youth will hold a RCF Organisational Development Training and Workshop in Bali, Indonesia. The workshop will focus on developing good practices for consortium members and find ways to implement these practices into the organisations working systems.
For more information, contact: Eddy Rudram | eddy@youth-lead.org