Evidence shows that international agencies, private foundations, and governments are more and more willing to finance projects focusing on the youth or to sponsor initiatives that involve youth participation. It is often seen in calls for proposals for projects that provide livelihood opportunities for women, youth, and other marginalised groups. It is clear that donors are more interested in projects that are willing to establishing collaborations or working relations with young people because they are among one of several groups who should be protected and/or helped within the community.
Often, calls for projects emphasise the need for initiatives to raise awareness, protecting and enforcing rights with a special focus on young people. As such, a consistent part of the allocated funding goes to educational programmes whose goal is to empower young citizens as political actors and, as such, facilitating youth participation in the social and political life of the community.
Also, and especially due to present circumstances, international and local donors are interested in sponsoring training programmes that are able to provide young participants with concrete and valuable skills, which could improve their chances in entering the job market. Another area attracting funding and attention from donors is that of heath education with a particular emphasis on sexual education and disease prevention.
Further, international agencies and private donors favour projects targeting the youth because involving younger generations in project design, management, and development will ensure sustainability to the proposed projects. In fact, by proactively seeking the involvement of youth sectors, NGOs could attract new people to invest time and resources for the future continuation of proposed projects.
Additionally, it must be considered that working with young people, especially in the first phases of project design, could produce projects that target their real needs and address their concerns, thus probing for the necessity of such initiatives to exist and be financed.
Overall, it is important for your NGO to envision the ways in which meaningful and long-term collaboration with young people could be developed. It is important for your NGO to think about strategies that could attract the attention of young people especially if the main concerns of your organisations do not focus on youth. For instance, you could consider implementing strategies to make young people aware of the importance of what you do, thus raising awareness about your main cause.
Also, you could draft projects that are able to facilitate inter-generational collaboration and exchanges capable of linking different communities and again facilitating the participation of young people to collaborate towards the improvement of your community at large.
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