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YOUTH JOURNEY
 

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The Youth Journey is a roadmap for Generation Equality.
 
Created in collaboration with girls, young people, UN agencies, and Civil Society Organisations, spotlighting activation moments and opportunities for young people and adolescents to influence and lead the process.


READ THE LATEST YOUTH NEWSLETTER HERE!

YOUTH JOURNEY ROADMAP
 

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WHAT IS GENERATION EQUALITY

Accelerating Progress for Gender Equality by 2030

 

The 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and its historic Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, considered the most comprehensive blueprint for women’s rights to date, presents us with an opportunity to build a strengthened movement for gender equality and foster multi-stakeholder partnerships, which will drive high-level public and private investment and political leadership from various actors over the next years. 

This will be done through two main objectives: (a) Building a strengthened movement for gender equality and (b) launching a set of visionary Action Coalitions that are multi-stakeholder partnerships that will drive high-level public and private investment and political leadership from various actors over the next five years.

The Generation Equality Forum offers a vital moment in this mobilization. It is a civil society-centered, multi-stakeholder global gathering for gender equality, rooted in the same logic of feminist mobilization that made the momentous advance of the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action possible twenty-five years ago.

The Forum will kick-off in Mexico City on 29th -31st  March 2021 and culminate in Paris in June 2021. The transformative vision of the GEF and the Action Coalitions to achieve systemic change assumes even more relevance in the context of building back better after COVID-19.

Generation Equality
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WHAT IS THE YOUTH JOURNEY 

 

In July, August and September, UN Women came together in multiple design sprints with diverse young people that are part of the Generation Equality governance structures, youth led + serving organisations, UN agencies and UN Women country and regional offices and national gender youth activists to conceptualise a youth journey for Generation Equality. 

 

What: The youth journey is a roadmap for youth leadership in the Generation Equality process. It lifts up the key activation moments and opportunities for online and physical engagement and leadership of young people and girls. By co-created communications, virtual spaces, capacity building and online engagement we will be leveraging international days and amplifying the important work being done by youth led and youth serving civil society organisations and different stakeholders.

  

Who: Girls and young people in all their diversity:  young women, young men, girls and boys and non-binary youth, young people and girls with disabilities, indigenous, afro descendent youth and girls, young people and girls of color, Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Trans, Intersex youth, young people living with HIV AIDS, and young people living in conflict zones and from refugee population across the world. 

 

Why: To centre the leadership and participation of young people and girls in Generation Equality; strengthen accountability, accessibility and meaningful youth leadership and power; mobilize diverse young people and connect the dots between formal and youth led spaces.

 

When: The generation equality process spans till end of 2025 


Where: locally, regionally, and at a global scale.

Youth Journey
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Get Involved

GET INVOLVED

If you would like to receive regular updates about the youth journey - please sign up to this mailing list or email youth.engage@unwomen.org

 

THANK YOU 

 

The youth journey was created in collaboration with:

 

 

Resources

RESOURCES

Platforms

 

Tools

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OUTREACH TO DIVERSE GIRLS AND YOUNG PEOPLE

After a series of small focus group discussions with adolescent girls, young people, and allies from different communities we have developed a series of recommendations on strengthening inclusivity and diversity in the Generation Equality process. 

 

The recommendations are as follows:

Adolescent Girls

  • Ensure meaningful engagement is constant, consistent and respected.

  • Create more spaces for girls to talk and share ideas where girls feel comfortable and safe. 

  • Voices and perspectives must not just be heard but listened to and taken on board. 

  • Ensure robust safeguarding measures to ensure the safety and security of adolescent girls - striking a balance between ensuring safety, prioritising  their rights and agency, and not making girls feel restricted. 

  • Flexibility and adaptability must be emphasised to ensure accessibility.

 

Young Women 

  • Rural and marginalised communities are being left behind and there is an urgent need to work intentionally to engage these groups including through increased and strengthened local and regional partnerships.

  • Resourcing (or lack thereof) has significant impacts on meaningful engagement of young women and the allocation of resources across GEF needs to ensure equity as well as equality.

  • The definition of ‘young women’ is dependent on the cultural background and context of constituencies and this needs to be considered to ensure meaningful engagement.

 

Young Indigenous Women and Girls

  • Access barriers need to be overcome to ensure meaningful engagement of indigenous young women, which include language barriers (limited information available in local languages and overwhelming use of acronyms); exclusion of young women and girls with no internet access; inconvenient meeting times; and lack of consideration for cultural differences. 

  • Strengthened connections at a regional level to reach informal groups and networks, including connecting with key organisations and UN mechanisms on rights of indigenous peoples.

 

LGBTQI Youth 

  • Language and framing; Exclusionary language remains common across the Generation Equality process and needs to be actively moved away from. Need to shift from talking about ‘equality between men and women’ as this erases the existence of intersex and minority gender people. 

  • Safety; Needs to ensure the safety of young LGBTQI activists, through a mechanism of holistic security and a formalised, centralised and overarching non-discriminatory policy for civil society and UN agencies in the Generation Equality process. Recognising spaces are not always safe.

  • Intentionality in the creation of spaces and platforms in and across the Generation Equality processes for LGBTQI youth visibility and connection is critical.

 

Girls + Young people with disabilities

  • Empowering young women and girls with disabilities through confidence building initiatives and by providing them with skills training and mentorship opportunities is vital.

  • Accessibility Proactively ensuring spaces and technology are accessible and safe for young women and girls with disabilities is essential for meaningful engagement.

  • Sustained and meaningful engagement and representation: Young women and girls with disabilities should not only be engaged with but also represented and included in decision making and policy making mechanisms of Generation Equality. 

  • Strengthened connections and synergy between the gender equality movement and disability rights movement and creating spaces for young women and girls with disabilities.

Outreach

HEAR FROM GIRLS AROUND THE WORLD

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