Programing Context
Youth-led Innovative Engagement with Leadership Development (YIELD Trust) is a youth organisation that advocates and amplifies the voice of young people.As we seek to empowerment youth in a meaningful and lasting way; our programming is guided by the following tenets:
- Youth-led and youth-inclusive, that is, all the projects that we undertake are informed, owned and executed by young people. We don’t believe in actors acting “on behalf” of young people. We believe in the agency of youth.
- Gender sensitive, that is, all the activities we undertake should advance gender equality through women and queer empowerment.
- Locally relevant solutions, that is, all the activities that we undertake should mirror the real needs of young people within our local context. We believe that young people have the solutions to their issues, they need to be listened to and activated.
- Pragmatic and practical, that is, we believe that solutions should be tangible, actionable and solve the problem, instead of dancing around it.
- Research-based interventions, that is, all our solutions should be informed by data, that is why we invest in robust monitoring and evaluation in every step of intervention.
- Scalable, that is, we believe in not leaving any young person behind, therefore, we always seek to make our activities scale to reach as many people as possible.
- Sustainable, that is, as YIELD Trust, we seek to make our programming sustainable beyond the project time, that is why we consistently use the proven platform model, network model and champion capacity building model.
- In line with sustainable developmental goals, that is, in every project, we partner the world as a stakeholder in transforming our world for the better. Therefore, our projects contribute to the Sustainable Developmental Goals
Our Interests
- Leadership, Governance and Civic Engagement
We develop leadership, critical thinking and civic consciousness of youth through facilitating platforms of engagement with public officials, open debates and advocacy trainings. - Climate Change
Children and youth are the ones who will be most affected by the world that is polluted right now; understanding this, at YIELD Trust we are making young people aware of the dangers of climate change and help them seek ways to adapt, predict and prevent climate change. - Gender Equality
Young women’s empowerment is critical for the health and development of families, communities, and nations. Women can attain their greatest potential when they live in a safe, joyful, and productive environment. - Corruption and Illicit Financial Flows
Corruption and illicit financial flows are fueled by a lack of transparency and accountability, and the consequences are severe, disproportionately hurting youth and women. - Amplifying Youth Voices
Youth voice refers to the respect for young people’s distinctive ideas, opinions, and concerns, as well as their freedom to express them inside an organization or program. The voices of children and teenagers are valued equally to those of adults. YIELD Trust seeks to amplify that voice.
Our Projects and Activities
Bulawayo Voter Clubs
In the eve of 2018 elections, in the context of high number of first-time voters, we selected 300 youth election champions from all the 29 wards in Bulawayo to capacitate them in understanding the electoral process, and to then teach young people in their constituencies. The selection of young people was purposive with emphasis on women. On average, each champion taught more at least one group of 5people in their community, thus, reaching 1500 young people.
USAPHO
The program seeks to provide youth friendly education and counselling services in health facilities and communities on SRHR by supporting the provision of contraceptives, STI, HIV/ AIDS testing and screening services to young people through empowering them with information and improving their access to health-related services
Youth Advisory Council
In Zimbabwe, 77% of the population is under 35 – the country is experiencing slow economic growth, fiscal problems and deteriorating social services and the youth is disproportionately affected by these problems yet the local councils are dominated by old people. The Youth Advisory Council was a council created by YIELD Trust which trained young people on advocacy and then supported them in sitting in all council meetings so as to substantively contribute in the council on youth inclusion and youth support.
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Annual Green House Summit
In March 2019, Cyclone Idai struck Zimbabwe affecting 270 000 people and left 340 people dead and many others missing – agriculture and education were also heavily affected. This shows that Zimbabwe is already heavily affected by climate change. The Green House Summit is an annual sumit held by YIELD Trust supported by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung to discuss ways young people can contribute to climate change mitigation.
Safe Spaces for Womxn
In the context of increasing of physical, legislative and political violence towards women in various aspects of life, YIELD Trust created a safe space to reimagine a world where women could feel and be safe. Safe spaces for Women was a serialized pre-Covid-19 in-person plenary discussions on how to create safe spaces for women, at work, in politics, and in governance. It was led by young people from various areas of specialty and it was an open discussion where young people could engage and interrogate the thoughts of other young people in a safe space.
Bulawayo Youth Integrity Networks
The BYIN program is cluster based approach to accountability and transparency in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. The program clustered young people based on their area of expertise and they then developed sectional recommendations to improve transparency and accountability. The program has 4 core aspects, that is, the integrity networks, a podcast studio, workshops, and law and reform challenge.
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5000 Voices
As YIELD Trust we do not believe that there are young people who are “voiceless”, in fact, we do not want to be “the voice of the voiceless”. We believe that young people are silenced and unheard when they speak. Hence we created the 5000 voices, an ambitious project that seeks to collect 5000 voices of young people on their views regarding access and quality of access on SHRH, justice, democracy and governance.
Memeza Podcast Network
Memeza Podcast Network is a platform for young people to express themselves. YIELD Trust provides a studio, a sound engineer and paid podcast channel on iono.fm which young people could use. This has resulted in young people starting and sustaining conversations that are developmental.
Learn more about the projectDebate Open Challenge
Since its inception in 2015, DOC has consistently been the largest annual biggest Zimbabwean 5-day debate tournament aimed at tertiary students. The tournament provided in-depth training in argumentation, critical thinking and public speaking, and then in turn provided 6 to 12 open motions in areas of politics, human rights and governance for young people to debate over five days. The goal is to make these skills transferable to engagement with their elected government representatives at local, regional and national levels.
Read More About The ProjectOur friends, donors and partners
These are the amazing organisations (and most importantly, the people in them) we have worked with in the past to deliver a women and youth inclusive and youth friendly world in politics, governance, leadership and business.
Join a project!
Do any of these activities excite you as a young person and you want to meaningfully contribute in any one of them? Drop us a line and we will get back to you!
Support a project!
Do any of these activities align with your organisational goals and plans for young people? Then don’t hesitate to drop us a line and we will get back to you!