AFRICA ALLIANCE OF YMCAS NEWSLETTER • ISSUE 18, DECEMBER 2009

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Greetings YMCA family and friends The Africa YMCA Youth Summit has given birth to a new generation of African youth leaders. Using the ‘From Subject to Citizen’ (S2C) model, the Summit focused on building the civic competence of youth participants for personal leadership development which is rooted in community responsibility and action. Organised by the Africa Alliance of YMCAs, this Summit was a result of the youth committee decision to launch the S2C concept at a continental level. Held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 28 October to 5 November 2009, the date was selected to coincide with African Youth Day on I November. These Summit participants are young and have a positive contribution to make to the present and the future of our countries and our beloved continent, Africa. They know that continual personal development is the basis of our capacity to make impact together for the next generation of African YMCA leaders. Our collective commitment is at a personal level. From this, flows our unity to work on the ground with our communities and in strategic decision-making places and spaces. These young leaders will work to create their voice, which is about their belief in themselves and their skills and knowledge about citizenship and youth empowerment. Together, we will use this voice to occupy those decision-making spaces. We draw our strength from God and are bound by Christian faith. These youth are the new citizen leaders emerging, who will stand up and transform other young people for the African Renaissance. This Siyahamba reflects our Africa YMCA Youth Summit. It shares our experience, our model of thinking and our dedication to create a cadre of change catalysts – the S2C Ambassadors – to make our commitment a reality. We have begun our journey from Subject to Citizen and we are moving forward! Carlos Sanvee General Secretary

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W e met in Addis… almost 50 young African people from 12 different countries, along with 13 youth from Europe, Canada and

the United States. Some of us had no idea what to expect, others of us knew it was about some sort of change. We had been selected by our national YMCA movements to represent them and to bring back something tangible for change. We came, all of us with our different models of the world: How is this going to help us? How can we help? Well, I heard of many failed African initiatives, I have attended many talkshops – how will this be different? We have so much work to do back home – maybe I will just listen, agree, go back and put the notes under my pile of other papers. What will I get out of this? How can I make the most of this to change the lives of young people in my community and in Africa? Will this really work?

What is this ‘subject to citizen’ stuff, many of us wondered? The Summit opened our thinking and broadened our knowledge and we realised that, in-deed, youth are subjects in Africa – politically, economically, in our cultural and social systems and in our communities. We have become subjects in our minds and in our thinking, as a result of various historical, social and political influences that our continent has faced and is still dealing with. And this is the worst subjugation of all as it leads to a poverty of dignity where we do not believe in ourselves or place value on our bodies, our opinions or our role in community, social or political affairs. This subject mentality opens young people up to be at risk of being exploited and manipulated by various forces from bandit politicians to gangs. As youth, we are often at the forefront of violence and are the first to fall - injured, incarcerated or killed. We began to see how we had bought into this subject mentality in terms of how we think and behave and how we perceive problems and crises youth face in our communities and in Africa.

Issue 18 DECEMBER 2009

Our journey from Subject to Citizen has begun

Once were subjects...

The sheep experiment We thought about Africa in terms of bad followership, as opposed to just thinking of the leadership. During the opening ceremony we were really struck by an example which highlights this clearly: A scientist put a herd of sheep in line. He then placed a stick in front of them, two feet from the ground. The first sheep came and jumped over the stick. The second did the same. After the third sheep, he removed the stick.

To his surprise, when the fourth sheep came, it jumped over an imaginary stick. Every sheep there-after jumped over this imaginary stick. Their minds were fixed on a stick; they never realised it had been removed.

In Africa, we have been jumping over imaginary sticks for many years. Since colonial times, our fathers were trained to jump, and we are following them. External powers have set targets for our leaders to jump over and they are happy jumping. Because we are following them, we are also jumping. We are like the fourth or the fifth sheep. At least our leaders can see the stick. They know why they are jumping. But we are busy jumping, blindly using their standard.

This is what we mean when we talk of being a

subject. A subject is someone who has limited rights

and obligations beyond loyalty to the Master. Being a

citizen and civic competence is the ability to think

before you jump over the stick, whether it is

imaginary or real. The ability to think about why we

are jumping, and decide whether it is the best time to

jump or not.

Gabriel Ofori Appiah, Ghana YMCA, at the official opening ceremony held at the Africa Hall of the Economic Commis-sion for Africa (United Nations Building). We had a great time there in the very place our African leaders decided on the formation of the African Union… speeches, dance, drums beating, vuvuzela blowing...

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Through a visual session led by award-winning photographer, 26-year-old Boniface Mwangi, and renowned editor and publisher, Billy Kahora, we explored the post-election violence in Kenya. We watched documenta-ries and walked through a photo exhibition that was transported from Kenya. We used this example to talk about other crises in Africa and the manipulation of youth to fuel the flames of hatred for political or eco-nomic agendas. Africa is burning in many dif-ferent ways. We realised that if young people are at the heart of the subjection and are being used as tools, the only way to stop this is if young people bring about the change in their countries, which will cumulatively transform the continent. Youth in Africa need to stand up as one in Africa and fight this. Stories of transformation We heard the testimony of three young people who had been subjects and who had reached various low points in their lives, some of these were about facing death, and some of these were about feeling hopeless and having no options. Diouf Ndiaga from Senegal told of his experience as a deported illegal immigrant, Stephen Nyagah from Kenya shared his journey from his life as a gang member, and John took us through his ordeal as a child soldier. Here is John’s story… Transformation is a process: the jungle days still linger Testimony of John, a former child soldier A young man of 26 shared his story of his journey from subject in the jungle during the civil war of Sierra Leone… to citizen, now as a teacher in YMCA vocational training and mentor to young boys in his community. Sharing his story took tremendous courage and bravery. John has tried to ‘forget’, and the process of telling his story meant he had to relive it and go back to memories so awful they haunt him in his dreams. He was also concerned that participants may judge him. This despite the fact that he was captured at the age of nine and had no choice in the course of the next seven years as a child soldier in the jungle. But he did it! Today he bears the physical scars of a young boy not big enough to even carry the gun that became his most consistent companion during those years.

The emotional scars are still there and the process of recovery is long – he took part in disarmament in 2000. While he was reunited with his father soon after disarmament, he has never again seen his mother since that day when his childhood and every-thing that felt secure, was ripped apart. After disarmament, John struggled and was drawn to peers with a negative influence on him. But through his father’s guidance and that of his pastor, he has been able to work through most of the emotional impact. After completing a course in tailoring at the YMCA vocational training centre, John is now himself a trainer for this course. He was also able to obtain some basic education through the YMCA. Much of John’s time is spent with youth in his area, encouraging them to fulfill their potential and have a positive influence on their peers too. During his testimony, John expressed a desire to continue with his schooling. One participant was so

Some of the photos taken by Boniface during the post-election violence in Kenya… he sometimes had to conceal his ethnic identity for fear of death while taking pics during this time… so he could show the real story.

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moved by his journey and determination, she stood up and offered a donation towards this. During the Summit, others of us also gave donations towards his schooling. Participants were able to really understand how youth are treated as subjects and exploited and manipulated, through John’s testimony. Importantly, they also realised that the journey of transformation has many facets to it. For John, it has been a long process and it still continues. Telling his story was part of this. Although it was stressful for him, it was in some ways healing too. And it was affirming because instead of the judgement he feared, he received ap-plause, nurturing, admiration, support and friendship. In reflecting on the journey of transformation from the testimonies, we looked at various situations that lead youth into lives where they are subjects. There are different paths out of this existence. Some happen with one connection or meeting with a person or organisation that shows them a different way. Some happen gradually. What we did see that was common to all three experiences, was that citizenship happens when you start to make a difference in other people’s lives – and all three are doing that using their personal experience to develop other youth.

As African YMCAs, we have a shared vision: Empowering young people for the African Renaissance. It sounds really great and something to aspire to. But what does it mean for us as youth? And what is our role in it? As we see it, African Renaissance is both a vision and a call to action! It is about being able to imagine the rebirth and reawakening of our beloved Africa and mobilising as Africans to reclaim and direct our destiny. Central, is people-centred economic recovery and prosperity, and political democracy. But it also involves celebrating and elevating our culture and our Africanism. The patron of the Ethiopia YMCA, Abba Paulos, who is the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and also the President of the World Council of Churches, urged us as youth participants to use our time to produce fruitful results for our future generation; to rise up and make concrete decisions that will bring positive transformation to the African continent.

The African Renaissance is about us all playing a role in decision-making that affects every part of our existence: political, economic and social. As Prof Lumumba shared with us, the African Ren-aissance must be realised through positive action not empty rhetoric. He paraphrased Wole Soyinka, Nigerian writer, poet and playwright to highlight this: The African tiger should not shout about its tigritude but along its path, we should see the skeleton of a duiker and know that some tigritude has emanated from there. He encouraged us as youth leaders to know our history and that of our great leaders like Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Amilcar Cabral, Modibo Keita, Patrice Lumumba and Steve Biko. We need to learn from this because the more important question that needs our attention and action is: How do we change to make this Century the African Century? We realised that change is a trinity of activity, initiative and determination. Pro-activity is the key that will open doors that still remain closed to many Africans, and the erosion of self-esteem must be shunned by youth if Africa is to realise its potential. We need to draw our optimism from three solid reasons:

• The encouraging signs of growth and democ-racy in Africa

• The constructive role of business investment in expanding Africa's economy

• The success of private-public partnerships in African business and social investing.

“The renewal of Africa belongs to this genera-tion. We dare not fail our people, and our conti-nent. If there are beautiful dreams about Africa, then there are roads that lead to that dream.”

“When I listened to his story I felt sad. He was taken by

force – he did not choose what happened to him. So the

consequence I think when that kind of thing happens, is

that healing takes so much longer.”

“Young people need the kind of courage he has. It was

good for us to realise that no matter how bad things are

and even if we feel we have passed the point of no

return, there is purpose for our lives. So we need to all

look for this purpose – and we should look for this by

helping others and saving others.” - Participant comments on John’s story

African Renaissance… rhetoric or reality?

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Decolonising our minds So the big question, then, is where do we start? A solid starting point is about how we as youth view and respond to the crises in Africa and the chal-lenges in our leadership and our programme offer-ings in Africa – one that looks at root causes instead of results or effects. We looked at crises in Africa and how they affect youth – and what belief and value system has caused us to allow the crises to happen. So instead of looking at lack of education as the problem to be tackled, we were challenged to dig deeper and see that the root causes could involve the youth poverty mentality, a lack of drive or purpose and a way of thinking where we just focus on problems and not solutions. This feeds directly into our beliefs and values as youth that we are inferior, victims, have a dependency syndrome and an individualistic attitude. This is what we came up with:

Identified crises Root causes Beliefs and value systems

• Education

• Unemploy-ment

• Governance

• HIV and AIDS

• Tribalism

• Morality

• Poverty mentality

• Lack of identity/ self-esteem

• Lack of purpose-drivenness

• Superficial spirituality

• ‘No choice’ mentality – focusing on problems not opportunities

• We are inferior • We are victims

• Afro-pessimism

• We do not have a choice

• We are dependent on govt & the West for

• jobs or opportunities

• What does not affect me is okay

Our new beliefs and values Our new choices

• We trust in God

• We believe in ourselves

• We always have a choice

• We have the power to influence for positive change

• Every individual, clan, tribe and nation has a contribution to make – we value everyone

• We defy the odds

• We are wealth creators

• The change we want starts with us

• We value family

• We choose the way of God

• We live inside out

• We stand up for what we believe

• We are economically fruitful

• We preserve our resourceful cultural heritage values

• We empower the disadvantaged amongst us

• We make ourselves accountable and call for accountability

• We continuously empower ourselves

• We forgive others

• We listen to others and are open to criticism

Next, we did an enabler session where we looked at how we change our model of the world, by embracing a belief and value system will enable us to overcome the identified crises. And importantly, the choices and results that will emanate from this. And things started to look a whole lot better:

On Africa Youth Day, we spent time at the Ethiopia YMCA projects and a really good reflective session after-wards on peer educators and the S2C model.

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We clearly identified the results we wanted from the choices we make: • Identifying our own potential

• Self-actualisation • Increased self-esteem

• Building our civic competence • Making a positive impact on other lives

• Self-sustaining lifestyles

• Pride in our African heritage and values • Social tolerance

• Democracy • Political stability and no civil wars

• Positive image of Africa. • Productive empowered society

• Reduction of unemployment rates and poverty • Social and economic development

• Improved and accessible education structures • Enhancement of sound youth-related policies

• Grassroots participation • Rebranding of nation

• Youth involvement in decision-making processes, especially political, so that govern-ment cannot run without us

• Collective fulfilment “This was an important part of decolonising our minds. We realised that we do not have to be conditioned as youth to accept what we are told or manipulated by those in authority. We began to unlock our ways of thinking to know that we have a choice to make positive changes in our own lives. This was the foundation for sessions when we then looked at creating our voice and how to use various platforms to begin to influence for positive change that affects youth in Africa.” - participant comment

An incredible change took place within us. We began to develop a model of the world where we now see ourselves as citizens, and together we developed a definition of a citizen based on our new model of the world.

And we developed a Youth Summit Creed which we committed ourselves to personally and collectively. Of course, being young, we put much energy and enthusiasm to shouting this out as often as possible and we even played around with turning it into a rap song… we need to get back to that when we meet again!

I have a choice – I am a citizen!

Citizen: Conscious of his/her rights and responsibilities, a citizen is strategically positioned to engage in decision making processes, and has influence on positive and sustainable transformation.

Youth Summit Creed Now I have a choice I trust in God I have a purpose I pursue my purpose I believe I can I stand up for what I believe I take responsibility I take action I am a citizen I move forward x 3 For the African Renaissance

4rm da S-2-da-C… rapping our creed!

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In reflecting on our understanding of S2C during the Summit journey, we said: • I hadn’t thought of the concept of being a

subject. The Summit helped point out where that was true and encouraged me to step into being a citizen

• I didn’t know I was a subject - now I’m a citizen!

• In the past days, it has been emphasised to me on how we should move from being subjects to citizens. It made me realise that there is a crisis in Africa and as young people, we have a responsibility. In everything we see and everything we want to see, we need to form inside us.

• It has changed in that I now know that the transformation starts with me and not always blaming those in authority.

• It’s about time young people are referred to as important people and citizens.

We understand that there are two components of civic competence: subjective and actual competence. In our new citizen model, we are building the subjective which is about our belief in ourselves and our impact as youth leaders. Now actual competence is about our ability to make things happen! So we were equipped with some of the tools that citizens need to bring about change.

Advocacy As citizens, we know we need to continually acquire knowledge and skills to empower ourselves so we can influence for meaningful change. We learnt a lot about using advocacy as a powerful tool to influence: planning a campaign, choosing a theme, understanding our targets, involving our beneficiaries and the various actions that we could take. One of the key decisions of the Summit, in fact, was that YMCAs need to play a stronger role in advocacy to create more citizens with voice, space and ability to influence. So we left with a whole toolkit of information and ideas on advocacy. Contextual Bible Studies As YMCA youth, our citizenship is based on our faith and our spiritual strength. The Bible and theological resources provide us with a great way to influence for positive change. We did Contextual Bible Studies (CBS) where we read verses and then discussed how this relates to current issues or crises we face. And how we can use biblical reflection and teachings to reframe the way we deal with both the issues themselves and how we overcome them. The great thing about CBS is that readers (even if they are illiterate) are able to interpret the texts according to their own context, cultural background and life experience. So as we were really diverse, we were able to see how this works and how the interpreta-tion is relevant and powerful for everyone involved in

the process. We realise that we can use CBS as a transformation tool with other youth and our com-munities as we go forward in our quest to transform as many youth as possible from subject to citizen. African Youth Charter We now know all about the African Youth Charter and that it serves to support policies, programmes and actions for youth development in Africa. We have rights that protect us against the many crises we discussed, such as unemploy-ment, migration, education, bad governance, peace and security.

Knowledge and skills for citizenship

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But we also know that we are nowhere near enjoying these rights it confers on us. We know that it will only remain as useful as the paper booklets that were handed out unless we, collectively, advocate and hold our governments to account. This is where our responsibilities come in, regarding the Charter. The most important responsibility is to have a good understanding of the Charter, so that we can: • Popularise the Charter everywhere (schools,

universities, churches, sports teams, etc.);

• Advocate for the implementation of the Charter;

• Strengthen relations and dialogue with authorities on youth issues;

• Ensure ownership and use it to improve youth participation and be part of current challenges facing the world and the youth; and

• Initiate innovative actions regarding the Charter and all development actions for youth in their respective area of intervention.

Through the Africa Alliance, we are beginning to create a partnership with the African Union on youth issues, especially where they relate to the Charter. So on African Youth Day on 1 November, we issued a joint press statement with the AU and it was well published on the online news sites. We will be look-ing at ways to continue this and to use the Charter to leverage support in our national movement advocacy

around citizenship. As every journey needs a road map, we then devel-oped personal and national movement action plans to guide us. Our personal plans are aligned to our national plans in terms of the efforts we need to put in at a personal level to make sure that the S2C model is endorsed nationally and becomes a youth empowerment model in African YMCAs. “We were able to make a clear link between our de-velopment as individual leaders and institutional leadership development. We all set personal goals, which then fed into action plans that we made to roll out the S2C model on a practical level in our move-ments across Africa.” The overall goals of the Summit going forward are:

• Increase awareness of S2C – the concept, proc-ess and expected outcomes. This is to be done at all levels from local branches to Africa Alliance;

• National movements to adopt/endorse S2C as the core youth empowerment model, and align stra-tegic plans to the S2C concept;

• Training for S2C Ambassadors, through a devel-oped curriculum and certification process;

• YMCAs to play a stronger role in advocacy to create more citizens with voice, space and ability to influence; Create strategic alliances with other organisations of similar mindsets.

And so the first group of S2C Ambassadors are emerging! We committed ourselves to become S2C Ambassadors which is a certifying status that acknowledges the special involvement and commitment of a citizen. An S2C Ambassador:

• Understands the concept of subject to citizen; • Agrees to live according to the S2C creed, values and principles;

• Identifies and recruits other young people who will be willing to become change agents in their community and their country; • Promotes the S2C concept in meetings and international YMCA gatherings; and

• Develops, over time, a credible voice, effec-tively uses various spaces and proves compe-

Our road ahead

S2C Ambassadors will lead the way

Papiss Dieme, Senegal YMCA, with his S2C certificate

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tence in influencing various decision-making processes.

Those of us who showed commitment during the Summit had the Ambassadorship bestowed on us. But this is with the proviso that we have to show the ability and competence required in practical terms to have this confirmed by May 2010. It also gives all participants, even those who did not attain Ambassadorship at the Summit, the opportunity to become S2C Ambassadors. For our ambassadorship we will provide a portfolio of evidence of activities and outcomes in these areas:

• Endorsement of S2C and local/national alignment

• S2C Action plan implementation

• Communications

• Personal development

• Collecting testimonials

So we have our action plans, our ambassadorship requirements, and support of each other. Our eyes are now set firmly on the next step… we plan to meet in Ghana in May 2010, at the time of the Africa Alliance of YMCAs’ Ordinary General Meeting (OGM), which also coincides with a Partnership Summit. Here we will have training on how to be trainers ourselves so that we can transform other youth in our movement and in our communities, from subjects to citizens. This is the second formal phase in our journey and so we are working hard now to make sure we can do the important groundwork before this. We are citizens We are moving forward For the African Renaissance

Brrrrrrrr… Fire!

Our thanks... We could not have come this far without the support and partnership of institutions and individuals who believe that we as youth have a huge role to play in transforming Africa. Their belief in and commitment to us is so very much appreciated. We know that our achievements and success will be linked to this so we say a huge VIVA to them. And we hope that as we move forward, we will partner with others who also share in our vision, our excitement and commitment, and our belief that we are going to make a difference as youth in Africa. Special thanks go to:

• Youth Committee of the Africa Alliance for dreaming big and showing us that youth can play a central role in making things happen

• Africa Alliance of YMCAs for believing in us and making this dream a reality through the Summit

• Canada Y, CVJM (Germany YMCA),

YMCAs of USA, Karibu Foundation, Ford Foundation and Y’s Men International for their financial support

• Y Care International, Kwani?, World Alliance of YMCAs and African Union for their human resource contribution

• Ethiopia YMCA for hosting us, for their local

organisation and their volunteer support, and for securing local financial and in-kind sponsorship

• Facilitators Matt Jackson and Celine Grey

from Y Care; African YMCA volunteer lead-ership facilitators Vezi Mncwango, Evelyn Gueye and Solomuzi Mabuza; Boniface Mwangi and Billy Kahora for the Kenya Burning session; Raymonde Agossou of the African Union for her session on the African Youth Charter; and Prof Patrick Lumumba for his keynote address on ‘Making the 21st Century the African Century’.

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