Building Youth Leadership: MENA Regional Training for Sexual and Reproductive Rights Advocates

Deadline to Apply: April 30, 2013

The Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (YCSRR) has announced that  it is holding a Regional Training Session for Building Youth Leadership in the MENA Region, following its successful trainings in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Caribbean and Africa regions.

The YCSRR will conduct its third training session in the Middle East and Northern Africa region to build knowledge of youth activists on the ICPD and MDG review processes on regional and international levels, and assess how their commitments have been implemented at the country level. During the training, participants will strengthen their capacities to effectively lobby their governments and national delegations on issues related to the ICPD PoA and the MDGs, while also increasing their knowledge of issues concerning young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. Through these trainings, the YCSRR will provide ongoing technical assistance to participants and their organizations throughout the follow-up to the training. During the follow-up, participants will collaboratively work to develop national action plans to hold governments accountable to commitments made to youth SRHR in the ICPD and MDGs agenda.

When: June 16th - 19th, 2013

Where: Egypt

Training Goals

1. Build the capacities of young leaders to incorporate youth SRHR issues in the ICPD 2014 Review process, MDG 2015 Review and national poverty reduction strategy (PRS) processes.
2. Mobilize young people to advocate for youth SRHR in their respective national, regional and international ICPD and MDG review processes.

Training Learning Objectives

• Increase understanding of young people's SRHR and its links to gender equality and poverty reduction.
• Increase knowledge of ICPD PoA, Beijing Platform for Action, and MDG commitments, their review processes and implementation through national-level processes.
• Strengthen advocacy skills of young people to influence policy at national, regional and international levels in the lead up to ICPD and MDGs review processes. 

The YCSRR welcomes Letters of Interest from progressive youth-led and youth focused organisations who meet the eligibility criteria below to nominate two young people from your organisation to participate in the training. All organisations applying must support the YCSRR’s principles and values. 

The YCSRR seeks Letters of Interest from youth organisations who are:

• Based in MENA* either working on regional or national level in the region.
• Working with, or strongly connected to, young people between the ages 18 and 27.
• Have strong connections with national youth organisations and networks.
• Have a working knowledge of English (training will be conducted in English).
• With demonstrable experience working in the area of sexual and reproductive health and rights or related field.
• Planning to work on the ICPD, MDGs and PRS related advocacy initiatives & programmes in the lead up to 2014 and 2015.
• Have the institutional capacity to support its representatives to the training in the follow up at the national level.
• Willing and able to commit staff time and other resources to coordinate the preparation and follow-up to the training in the form of getting involved in and developing national-level advocacy initiatives in the lead up to the ICPD review in 2014.

*Please note: Selected organizations will collaborate with each other in the post-training follow-up process and longer-term engagement in supporting the YCSRR’s progressive youth SRHR advocacy in dialogues leading up to the review processes in 2014/2015.

Interested and qualified organisations must complete the application form, clearly responding to all questions. In the application form, please also identify 2 nominees from your organization who will participate in the training. 

For any inquiries, please contact admin@youthcoalition.org. Please submit completed application forms by April 30th, 2013 at 5pm EST.