What Does it Take to Be a Gender and Youth Champion?
Event Information
The GAYA (Gender and Youth Activity) needs your input! On September 27, join GAYA for a participatory discussion on what core competencies are needed for gender and youth champions and how we can promote them within food security programs. Gender, Youth, and Social Dynamics (GYSD) Leads on Resilience and Emergency Food Security Activities are often hired with either a gender background or youth background, but rarely both. Hiring gender and youth staff with the right skills, and supporting them to grow those skills, is a key to program success.
In 2017, the TOPS program created a Core Competencies series. These tools were intended to provide hiring managers, program managers, and program staff with explanations of the basic skills and knowledge senior technical staff need to carry out effective food security programs, including gender staff. GAYA is developing a Youth Core Competencies guide as a companion to the Gender Core Competencies guide. Now we need your input to decide how to make these documents as useful as possible!
Through this participatory discussion, GAYA would like your input to:
- Understand who is most likely to use these documents, and how;
- Identify ways to weave together gender and youth competencies to strengthen the capacity of GYSD leads; and
- Explore how these guides can help create buy-in from organizational leadership, field implementers, and donors for the importance of gender and youth integration.
The feedback gathered in this discussion will help GAYA create revised Gender and Youth Core Competencies documents structured to meet the use cases identified in this session. We will then return to this community to validate the content of these guides.
The Gender and Youth Activity (GAYA) works to improve the quality and impact of food security activities by addressing the barriers and challenges implementing partners face when integrating gender and youth within their activities. Understanding and meeting the unique and intersectional needs of women and youth, and addressing the root causes of the inequalities that affect them, are essential to achieve broad and equitable impacts in food and nutrition security.
GAYA supports partners implementing emergency response, early recovery, risk reduction, and resilience programs. GAYA is a five-year award (2021-2026) funded by USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) and issued through the IDEAL Leader with Associate Awards Activity. GAYA is implemented by Mercy Corps in collaboration with Save the Children.
This event is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of the Gender and Youth Activity (GAYA) and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
