The Y-Lead project promotes inclusive participation of Egyptian youth, with a strong focus on women, to become active citizens and take leading roles in the public sphere in general. In particular, the project emphasizes their role in the upcoming Local Council Elections.
The Local Council Elections in Egypt are considered as an opportunity for youth and women to actively engage in their communities, in order to push for a more democratic political life and to become more involved in the development of their local communities. Due to their participation in the project they will understand the rights and duties of the Local Councils and eventually take over the roles of deputies of local councils.
However, only a small percentage of youth and women are ready to take over such respon-sibilities due to the lack of required know-how and skills available. Anyhow, Local Council Elections is a great chance for the democratic transition in Egypt, as it will allow political participation to those who have been and still are excluded. Therefore, the Local Council Elections are in the very center of Y-Lead Project with a main aim of raising awareness about the importance of the Local Council Elections among people in 15 different gover-norates which qualify particularly youth and women to run for Local Councils and to be-come office holders.
Project Goals
The program aims to achieve increased social and political participation among youth and women, increasing overall accountability of the political system in Egypt. The program is empowering youth and women to contribute to a sustainable change in their communities and thus, maintaining the motivation for social change. This will ideally provide a solid basis for any further efforts towards a more open environment for change and cohesive society.
Through the course of the project, youth and women will learn how to facilitate dialogue, how to include marginalized groups and reach out to local actors from different sectors through implementing community-led initiatives and connecting them with representa-tives and local actors from different sectors to bring a positive change and develop the sense of ownership, inclusion and peaceful coexistence.
Target Group
The development and empowerment of youth and women in an attempt to change the social culture and norms that limit their full participation at the political and economic arenas. Therefore, the main target group are youth and women shall become empowered to take over more responsibilities for the development of their communities. The majority of the participants and beneficiaries are youth and women.
Although the proposed project is mainly targeting civil society actors, the applicants highly rely on a cross-sectoral approach. Here, we want to build up on previous efforts of the SET-Project-Series and continue cooperation with stakeholders from other sectors: media, reli-gion, public and private sectors.
Activities
After several planning meetings with the organizers we've started the development process. Together with our partner CDS we will implement activities on empowering local actors of civil society, as well as stakeholders from other sectors so they can fulfill the project aim.
During all project phases the participatory approach will be adopted in such a way that it highly engages the participants in the dynamics of the action and the continuous follow-up-activities and evaluation, in order to enhance commitment and ownership on behalf of the participants.
Outcomes / Achievements
In the course of the program, youth and women will acquire the needed knowledge and skills to run for Local Council Elections. A minimum of 45 individuals that will be equipped to run for Local Council Elections in the 15 targeted governorates.
In 15 governorates the project will establish cross-sectoral networks that support the im-plementation of local community initiatives and furthermore use their leverage to demand Local Council Elections. The cross-sectoral networks are supposed to be save spaces for people with different backgrounds (social, economic, religious, ethnic, etc.) to exchange opinions freely.
