The five teams are focusing on a wide range of topics, such as gender equality, ending child marriage, humanitarian work and peace and security.
- I’m so proud of my team. They are all very talented and the youngest member of the team is 21 years old! It’s really a youth-led campaign, and it will reflect their demands, dreams, challenges and perspectives, says Noura AlJizawi, who is leading a team working on a campaign focusing on Syria and youth leadership in peace and security.
Monalisa Padhee from Barefoot Collage International in India, is working on a campaign that is focusing on menstrual health education in schools and communities by empowering community leaders in rural areas.
– We are tired of just talking about social inclusion, she says. This time we are going to build the campaign so that the community leaders themselves can be part of advocating for their rights both offline and on online.
Mayuri Bhattacharjee from Dignity in Disasters is also working in rural areas of India, but with focus on inclusive disaster management and the formal recognition of youth groups in Assam, India as humanitarian workers.
– We believe in the power of ‘mobilisation’ and through our campaign we hope that we create an excellent model of digital collaborative campaigning for youth groups in other states in India apart from Assam.
Imane Lakbachi from the organisation Women Deliver in Morocco is planning to launch a campaign to combat systemic injustice.
– The campaign will advocate for women and girls’ full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership, as well as women and girls’ mental health and sexual and reproductive health and rights in Morocco.
The focus in the lab will be peer-to-peer learning and tailor-made coaching from experts according to the participants needs, as well as practical hands-on support from designers and social media experts. The participants will also focus on setting goals and target groups, as well as deepen their team skills to engage more people. They will also learn more about how to launch, monitor and evaluate the impact of the campaign. The idea is that each team will have launched their campaign, by the time the programme ends in mid-December.
– What thrills me the most is the network and experience SI offers us in every new course! says Sara El Outa from The Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering, who is working on a digital campaign that aims to end child marriage in Lebanon.
The primary objective of the lab is for teams to launch effective digital advocacy campaigns that have a positive impact in their country/region working towards the 2030 Agenda.