Young Leaders Program: Advocacy Workshop in Sabastya, 13th – 14th of April 2018

The youth participating travelled to Sabastya, where they met with coordinators of both organizers, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC).

The sessions incorporated knowledge the Young Leaders had accumulated in past workshops on communication skills and teamwork to discuss direct methods of action. This time around, trainers and participants worked on the identification of pressure groups, tools in teambuilding and goalsetting for any given campaign. As part of the introduction to messaging, the coaching pointed to the relationship between campaign goals and the medium used to communicate them.

As modern means of advocacy, online campaigns were specifically highlighted during the training. The participants shared their experiences in online spaces, such as Facebook and Twitter, and imagined what fresh approaches they could take to use these platforms in advocacy work.

During the second day, all preceding sessions were put to use in advocacy campaigns the participants designed, ready to be published. The groups focused on issues they deemed important, often relating to the projects the Young Leaders design as part of the program.