The Make Youth Active in Civic Transformation (MY ACT) Project

This is a 6-month (October 2025 – March 2026) project funded by the KIOS Foundation under the Haki Ni Yetu programme. It is a cross-cutting ABEDEV project supporting at least 3 of the organisation’s strategic interventions, namely the Youth Civic Awareness Cluster of Action, the Youth-led Accountability Cluster of Action and the Youth Participation in Government Decision-making Cluster of Action.

The project aims at mobilizing at least 370 young people (male, female and youth with disabilities) across Samia subcounty and organising them into a network called the Youth Leadership Structure (YLS) for promoting active youth engagement in governance, rights, development and civic processes across Samia subcounty and within the larger Busia County. The YLS has three tiers of youth mobilization, organisation and empowerment, namely the Village Youth Discussion Groups (VYDGs), the Ward Youth Discussion Groups (WYDGs) and the Constituency Youth Discussion Group (CYDG).

By December 2025, the project has reached youth across all the 17 village administrative units in Samia subcounty (Busia County, Kenya). The youth have formed a VYDG for each of the 17 units. Each of the 17 VYDGs have in turn elected at least 3 youth leaders, namely the Village Youth Champion, the Village Youth Secretary and the Village Youth Coordinator. The VYDG leaders are expected to lead their VYDGs in active youth engagement in civic, development and rights promotion activities in their respective village units. Further, the Village Youth Champion is to represent the VYDG in the next tier of the YLS, the WYDG.

At the end of the MY ACT project in April 2026, it is expected to have set up at least 5 WYDG. Four of the WYDGs will be based on the physical wards in Samia subcounty, namely Nangina, Ageng’a-Nanguba, Bwiri and Namboboto-Nambuku. The fifth WYDG would be a non-physical one representing youth with disability. The WYDGs are expected to deepen youth engagement in civic, development and rights promotion activities by acting as sites of knowledge and skills acquisition, processing and dissemination among the youth.

Youth leaders elected into the WYDGs will not only represent their respective VYDGs, but they will also elect three leaders for their respective WYDGs, namely the Ward Youth Champion (also called Youth MCA, to correspond to the current political structure at the ward level), the Ward Youth Secretary and the Ward Youth Coordinator. The Ward Youth Champion (the Youth MCA) will represent their respective WYDG in the final YLS tier, the CYDG. Within the CYDG itself, those elected into it will elect the Constituency Youth Champion (also known as the Youth MP, to correspond with the existing political structure at the constituency/subcounty level), the Constituency Youth Secretary and the Constituency Youth Coordinator.

The CYDG will be a platform for youth representation in high-level advocacy initiatives as well as a site for youth to acquire knowledge about transformational leadership and youth volunteerism. Ultimately, the MY ACT project is expected to transform youth engagement in rights, civic and development processes in Samia subcounty and the larger Busia County, placing youth in the driving seat of these processes.