We held the PARTICIPATE! International Conference from 17th to 25th October 2022 bringing together participants from Kenya, Denmark and Zimbabwe. The participants were drawn from members organizations of Youth Alive! Kenya , YETT Zimbabwe , and the Danish Youth Council (DUF). The objective of the convening was to foster cross-country learning, networking, development of partnerships and co-creation of change projects and activities that would qualify for funding from the DUFs (Danish Youth Council) international pool.
PARTICIPATE! promotes a democratic civil society where young people act as change agents that take part in decision-making processes and influence politics and developmental efforts.
In this write-up, Shalin Obinda, a participant, reflects on the 10-day event and what she learned.
“I am Shalin Obinda. My organization is Siaya Muungano Network. I took part in the PARTICIPATE! 2022 International Conference.
I gained new knowledge and skills from the conference sessions which includes: project design, partnership building, self-care, communication and advocacy, democracy & dialogue and design thinking and innovation.
I also got the opportunity to build friendships and exchange learnings with other participants who came from diverse backgrounds.
My biggest takeaway was project design I gained a lot of new knowledge from this session. This included the criteria for coming up with a project, the beneficiaries of the project and for the first time I learnt how to write a project proposal.
My biggest memory from the conference was the cultural night and learning from diverse backgrounds, I learnt new cultural practices from the Zimbabweans and the Danes.
Initially, as the organization, we didn’t know that we could partner with other organizations from Zimbabwe and Denmark but after the conference, we build friendships with international organizations and we agreed to partner with the organizations to do some projects together which will benefit young people from our communities.
I want to take this opportunity to thank Youth Alive! Kenya for trusting me and giving me the opportunity to be part of the PARTICIPATE! 2022 International Conference 2022.”
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