By Jacqueline Garcia Cordero

Youth Economic Inclusion Opportunity

GOYN-Mexico City

My name is Jaqueline García, I am the Economic Inclusion Coordinator of the Global Youth Opportunity Network (GOYN Mexico City). GOYN is a multi-actor, global network that promotes, through the implementation of collective initiatives, the economic inclusion of people. young opportunity. Resilient young people who have had to face various obstacles throughout their lives to freely exercise their right to education and decent work.

GOYN is located in eleven communities around the world. It is established in cities or municipalities, depending on the way in which each country is geographically distributed. In Mexico, we are in Mexico City, where 700,000 people live. young opportunityIn Latin America, we are established in Barranquilla and Bogotá, Colombia, and in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We are also present in several countries such as India, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa.

Since I joined the team, something that I have found wonderful is GOYN's ability to understand the logic of impact at a local level, without losing sight of the need to learn from best practices at a global level. In other words, there are things that we, as young people from Mexico City, would probably never think we share with young people from Mombasa. However, this path has helped me understand that there are more similarities than we think and that they are evident, especially around the challenges that young people face in order to find employment and study.

In response to the need to share, learn and build community, an Annual Convention is held each year in one of the cities where GOYN works. The first in-person global convention was in Bogotá, Colombia (2022), and the second in Mombasa, Kenya (2023). I have had the opportunity to be in both learning spaces and would like to share some of the key lessons we have learned as a coordinating team and, on a personal level, as a young person. To do so, I will recount the latest adventure, the 2023 Convention.

The coordinating team is in charge, as a conductor, of articulating the organizations, entities and institutions that are part of the network, promoting horizontal co-creation with young people who represent different intersectionalities. For the 2023 Convention in Mombasa, Kenya, Emilia Ramírez, Nicole Nesma and I attended representing the coordinating team. Eduardo Shlomi Huerta Ramírez represented the Youth Advisory Group; and finally, Tere Lanzagorta represented the anchor partner YouthBuild Mexico.

The magic comes to life when we start putting faces to the names we usually see on Zoom. Colleagues from all over the world get together and celebrate the chance to share a couple of days to learn from each other. Most of us traveled for more than twenty hours to get there, but in the end, the wait is worth it.

The first lesson we learned as a coordinating team is that shared problems feel less overwhelming. Employability is a global challenge, and sometimes, even though we make many efforts to reverse trends, there is little or no obvious progress. The Convention always reminds us that we are not alone in our advocacy work; that we are many minds and hearts working from every corner of the world to make things happen; that there is hope as long as there are reasons to continue doing what we already do, and that the reason will always be to ensure that young people can create a decent life for ourselves and our families.

The second lesson we learned as a team is that no matter how different the socioeconomic conditions of each country may seem, there are more similarities than we could imagine. For example, we realized that in Mombasa, GOYN created an employability program for young people that includes training in socio-emotional and technical skills for employment. In GOYN Mexico City we have a very similar program that we call Comprehensive Training for Work (FIT). Knowing the Mombasa model was very enriching to analyze our own model, and it triggered questions such as the need to create new models for medium and small businesses.

The third lesson we learned as a team is that youth do not need to be represented by anyone other than themselves, because no one “gives them a voice.” Youth already have a voice, we are using it. Therefore, what we need to do as adult allies, young adults and youth, is to promote the inclusion of young opportunity in decision-making spaces, in inclusive co-creation processes and in community development. The Mombasa Youth Advisory Group, as well as the one we have in Mexico City, shared that “life was not made to survive, it was made to thrive, and to do so with passion, compassion, humor and humanism.”

As a young person who was once a young person of opportunity, I believe that spaces like the GOYN Global Convention offer fundamental elements and tools to be able, as a human being, to create a dignified life. They offer representation, because we listen to each other and recognize each other as friends, allies, brothers and colleagues, who share much more than a cause. They also offer support, because each person who is in that space opens the door and extends a hand to help, guide and encourage the other. Finally, they offer opportunities, because from these meetings we all return home with inspiration for the soul and the mind, which allows us to do our work better, create better initiatives and develop better projects.

What is not seen does not exist, even if it exists, that is why it is so important to recognize ourselves, to see ourselves, to know that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. A community that walks with us and supports us. A community that pushes itself, supports itself and contains itself when necessary, as many times as necessary, and always.