“Our motivation is to see every young person and youth organization in Africa benefit from The Youth Café towards a sustainable, entrepreneurial, and innovative future by connecting them to new ideas, skills, and people.”
Our History
Context and basis of the establishment of The Youth Café
Young people make up the bulk of Africa’s total population with an estimated 75% of the continent’s population below the age of 35. From a demographic point of view, this calls for a paradigm shift towards the recognition and support of the youth to harness their potential by building capacity for quality education and skills improvement, health and well-being, good governance, human rights and accountability, employment opportunities, leadership skills, empowerment and entrepreneurship.
This is the basis for the prioritization of youth development by The Youth Café. The Youth Café is a not-for profit youth organization incorporated in Kenya as a company by limited guarantee. It was initially registered as a Business Name No BN/2014/317392 on 7th October, 2014 then transitioned to a company by limited guarantee on the 4th of January, 2018 to accommodate it's expanding operations and activities. The Youth Café is duly Equivalency Determination Certified by the San Francisco based NGO source. An ED certificate for The Youth Café is available in the NGO source repository and immediately available to their member grant makers upon request.
The Youth Café is non profit making and all its finances go directly to its youth empowerment programs. Our strategy has always been to look at today's youth bulge as an opportunity for development and economic growth. This is why we are the leading organization for implementing a broad range of personal and professional development programs spanning life skills, job activations, media advocacy, entrepreneurship, peace and conflict prevention, among others. To date, we have reached 1.6 million young men and women with our projects and attracted major partners such as USAID, UNESCO, Ford Foundation, Global Challenges Fund, and Google to mention a few. Find out our other partners.
Watch our Theory of Change in 2D animated video!
We ARE YOUTH LED!
We use a positive youth development approach to implement programs within and across sectors. The Youth Café seeks to improve the capacity of youth-led and youth- serving institutions and engage young people, their families and communities so that youth can reach their full potential!
Multidisciplinary Youth Issues Group Report
On 2nd September 2012, the youth representatives in the United Nations High Level Panel on Post 2015 outreach consultations, established a Multidisciplinary group to provide guidance to the work of the The Youth Café. Comprising of 12 talented young emerging leaders from the fields of politics, academia, civil society, finance, and the media and from all international and regional youth groups, the Group was tasked with exploring the roots of youth deprivation and vulnerability, and recommending concrete action plans to address them. To do so, it met five times between November 2012 and November 2013 virtually and face to face meetings in London, Monrovia, Bali and at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
The Multidisciplinary Youth Group’s report, published on 13th November 2013, put forth recommendations that became the guiding principles in the implementation of the The Youth Café. In particular, it identified eleven priority areas of action for The Youth Café, which all play a critical role in strengthening meaningful inclusion for youth, and to which The Youth Café should bring a multidisciplinary and multi-perspective approach: Youth Population Trends and Sustainable Development; Youth and Comprehensive Sexuality Education; Youth and ICT; Fostering Dialogue and Mutual Understanding; Youth and Smart Investment, Youth Participation in Decision Making; Youth and Hunger; Culture and Youth Development; Youth and Armed Conflict, and Youth with Disabilities.
Africa Development Bank
"Young people are assets not liabilities. We cannot postpone their future into the future. We must help them today. By creating Jobs, not just jobs but quality jobs."
FORMAL LAUNCH OF THE YOUTH CAFÉ
The Youth Cafe was launched in 2012 by a group of a bright and motivated young people who were honored to be selected to give input to the United Nations High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on Post 2015 Agenda. Together they devised the model that The Youth Café utilizes today. This partnership is a unique, pioneering collaboration in the field of international development. Bolstered by grassroots knowledge, the Executive Director has dedicated his life to bringing hope to young people.
MAKING CHANGE HAPPEN
Young people have their lives before them. They are entitled to gain the right skills, knowledge, and opportunities to build a stable future for themselves, their communities, and their countries, and thus also for Africa: Willice Onyango, Executive Director at The Youth Cafe.
Institutional Development
On 10th November 2009, the youth representatives to the United Nations General High Level Panel on Post 2015 recognized the mandate of The Youth Cafe by adopting an organizational name “The Youth Café,” acknowledging the growing importance of investing in African youth as a precondition for accelerated inclusive growth and sustainable development and expressing its continuous support in the work of The Youth Café. However, given the loose network nature of The Youth Cafe, ambiguity concerning its legal status as an entity within the international youth development ecosystem persisted.
The Executive Director of The Youth Café, Mr. Willice Onyango, supported by other youth leaders drawn from Africa, began the process for official incorporation of The Youth Cafe with the aim of institutionalizing the legal status of TYC as a youth organization, and their months-long efforts were fruitful. On 6th July 2014, the founding youth leaders demonstrated their support for the work and achievements of The Youth Café and adopted by consensus resolution “The Youth Café,” hence affirming the status of The Youth Café(TYC) as a pan-African youth organization, an entity within international youth development. The resolution reiterated the valuable role of TYC fostering community resilience, proposing innovative solutions, driving social progress and inspiring political change.
The Youthful Audacity
To dream big and execute those dreams is essential in tackling the daunting challenges Africa faces today. The real returns will come if we can multiply this talent for innovation by the whole of Africa’s growing youth population,” he said. That depends on whether Africa’s young people — all of Africa’s young people — are given the opportunity to thrive.
Our focus areas today
““We’re excited to learn about the projects The Youth Café is working on. They remind us that building a more active citizenry is never too far out of reach so long as each of us plays our part.
— Bernadette Meehan, International Programming, The Obama Foundation”
““The ultimate aspiration is that The Youth Café supports young people across Africa access opportunities through innovation and acts as a heartfelt reminder of the continent’s potential.
— Forbes Magazine, 2020”