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Ongoing Projects

In the heart of Kenya, a group of young people gather around a laptop. They are part of our Digital Inclusion & Enterprise Innovation journey, where we invite youth from every corner of the country and beyond to imagine a future built by them, for them. We begin by saying: yes, your ideas matter. We equip young women and men with digital skills, from coding to creative tech-entrepreneurship, and offer pathways to enterprise so they don’t just learn, they launch, they build, they create value in their communities.

Here, a young woman turns her design skills into a micro-business. A young man from a rural county builds a local app that helps farmers access market information. Through the Vijana Digital Program, we bridge the gap between aspiration and access, between a dream and a product.

But it doesn’t stop at business. Because we know that for innovation to last, it must meet real community needs, we also foster enterprise innovation, so young people don’t only use tech, they use it to shape their futures in meaningful, sustainable ways.

Then we move to our second journey:

Youth-Led Governance, Peacebuilding & Civic Tech.

In this chapter, youth aren’t just participants, they are co-creators of change. We open dialogue spaces through our Voices of Change platforms, where young voices speak to accountability, transparency and justice. We spark hackathons, like our Code for Democracy program, where civic tech meets governance, and young innovators craft tools to deepen democracy, engage citizens and promote open institutions.

Imagine young people seated at a table with government advisors, because we created the bridge. Imagine young coders and community activists working side-by-side on a mobile tool that helps people report local-level service gaps. Through these efforts rooted in SDG 16, we promote peace, inclusive institutions and participatory governance.

In this strand, technology is not the star, it’s the amplifier for human voices. Young people become trusted partners in building resilient communities, especially across the COMESA region, where we establish One-Stop Youth Centres to support peace-building, resilience and regional collaboration.

Empowering Futures for At-Risk Vijana across COMESA member states: establishing One-Stop Youth Centres to foster peacebuilding and resilience.

Emerging Priorities

As we walk alongside young people, communities, and partners, a new chapter is unfolding, one shaped by the urgent challenges of our time and the bold possibilities ahead of us. Our emerging priorities are not abstract policy themes; they rise directly from what young people tell us in village barazas, innovation hubs, WhatsApp forums, and youth dialogues across the region. Three needs echo again and again: climate justice, green opportunity, and cross-border solidarity.

We are now weaving these into the next phase of our work.

1. First, Climate Justice & Green Skills.
   Across villages, informal settlements and border towns, young people see the effects of climate change every day: unpredictable rains, shrinking livelihoods, conflicts over scarce resources, and limited pathways to participate in the green economy. They are not asking for sympathy, they are asking for tools, voice, and a fair chance to lead the solutions. Our programs will equip youth with green enterprise skills, climate innovation training, and advocacy platforms so they can influence policy, access opportunity, and drive community restoration efforts. We envision young people who can plant more than trees, they can plant systems of accountability, resilience, and green livelihoods that last.
2. Second, Resilience, Peace and Cross-Border Collaboration.
   Because instability and climate impacts don’t respect borders, we are expanding our peacebuilding efforts across regions. From the COMESA corridors to East Africa’s border communities, we are cultivating youth-led resilience through One-Stop Youth Centres and intergenerational dialogue platforms. Our aim is to transform hotspots into collaboration points, where young people from different nations share knowledge, mediate tensions, co-create solutions, and build a culture of peace and mobility rooted in dignity and cooperation.
3. Third, Democratic Renewal through Civic Tech.
   Governance in Africa is shifting, and young people want to shape what comes next, not from the sidelines, but at the center. Through open-source civic tools, data literacy, accountability innovation and tech-enabled citizen engagement, we see emerging opportunities to renew public trust and make institutions more transparent and accessible. We will continue nurturing the builders, the watchdogs, and the solution-seekers, those who use technology to bridge citizens and duty-bearers, not divide them.

Together, these emerging priorities prepare us for a future where youth are not just reacting to global trends, they are anticipating, influencing, and leading through them. From digital to democratic, from green to peaceful, our journey continues with one constant thread: empowering communities from the ground up, so transformation is not imposed, it is home-grown, shared, and enduring.

Partnership and Collaboration

We welcome collaboration with organizations, foundations, and private sector partners committed to youth empowerment.