Reflections from Raphael: Outgoing Regional Coordinator for ESA
What motivated you to embrace the position of Regional Coordinator for East and Southern Africa?
Born in a rural area in Burundi, at 5 years I fled to Tanzania where I spent more than 7 years in a refugee camp. Back to Burundi, I encountered the violence of 2015 in the Capital City of Bujumbura where young people were the main victims. I contributed the little I could. Afterwards I realised that there is a need to raise the voices of young people, to raise it higher there is a need of collaborating with other young people from across the region or the globe who are working in the same area. When the opportunity for a regional coordination representative at UNOY came, I saw it as a huge opportunity to lead this global movement of young people at the regional level by establishing—together with the members—a common agenda, engaging different stakeholders and serving as a bridge to connect member organisations to relevant stakeholders.
What did you achieve during your time as a regional coordinator?
When I joined the network as regional coordinator, my first priority was to mobilise members to participate in the network’s activities, to provide their contributions when establishing a common agenda, and participate in its implementation. Today, members in the region are active and participate in the network’s activities; this is one of the things that we have achieved together as a member-led community. In terms of developing capacities, we were able to conduct a training on financial sustainability and organisational development for our members, which addressed members’ expressed needs.
More than that, we were also able to secure a partnership with Cordaid to support us in establishing further evidence on youth contributions to peace in the borderlands of the Great Lakes region.
What kind of roadblocks did you encounter during your mandate and how did you overcome them?
It is never easy to engage young people online at the regional level. One thing to understand is that most of them are operating in areas where they might not be able to find stable internet connection, and others are operating in voluntary roles (UNOY and SFCG have conducted research on that). So, the main challenge has been connectivity, mitigated by being as flexible as possible to talk to members whenever they manage to get online. The second key challenge has been related to capacity, which the training on financial sustainability and organisational development has done much to increase, as well as the huge efforts invested in searching for partnerships (established for a number of organisations. Finally, sharing more opportunities among members have contributed to the growth of the network in the region.
Can you share with us your best memory / highlight as regional coordinator?
When I joined the network as regional coordinator, the kick-off meeting was held in Addis Ababa in October 2018, where I was able to meet UNOY colleagues and we were able to learn from each other.
What advice would you like to share with the next regional coordinator to excel in their role?
Commit to the role, invest energy, and make real time to talk with members in order to strengthen the collaboration among them. It is also important for the new regional coordinator to strengthen their capacities and keep up to date with the YPS agenda and other issues that concern young people in order to be able to effectively support members and develop trusting relationships.
Dear Raphael,
From all of us at UNOY, we have learnt from and been inspired by your empowering leadership, relentless commitment, and exponential growth. Thank you for all of your hard work and expert dance moves!
Love and peace in your next steps ?
UNOY Peacebuilders