New Partnership Between GenU, WAGGGS, and U-Report Slated to Empower Girls and Young Women
GenU, U-Report and The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts join hands to spur new thinking and collaboration on youth engagement
New York — Coming on the heels of a meeting in December, Generation Unlimited, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) and U-Report have forged a unique partnership to empower girls and young women from diverse backgrounds to take action on issues that affect them.
The three partners convened in December to explore opportunities for strengthened collaboration at the country-level, drawing together partner focal points from priority countries including Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda, and India.
The virtual meet-up saw countries explore how to use the unique strengths of the partnership and served as a useful exchange of learning and cross-pollination of ideas, with each partner sharing plans and emerging youth engagement models for 2021.
In India, U-Report has partnered with Bharat Scouts and Guides to recruit thousands of young people onto the U-report platform as U-Reporters, who will, in turn, use their expansive Scouting and Guiding networks to bring their peers on board to the platform. As they reach recruitment targets, U-Reporters will accumulate ‘U-points’ as part of a credit system, connecting them to the wider economic opportunities and initiatives offered by GenU.
India’s approach is demonstrating the potential of this unique partnership, where the strengths of each partner are combined to create a bigger impact in the lives of girls and young women.
A core pillar of GenU’s work is to bring youth voices into the heart of its governance processes and ensure their meaningful participation across the partnership itself. There are already examples emerging of girls’ voices being amplified across the partnership: a young woman from the Rwandan Girl Guides Association will soon take up a role on GenU’s Rwanda Committee!
The meet-up signalled an exciting next phase in the partnership, forging new connections for greater collaboration and cooperation and helping to spur new thinking around youth engagement.
GenU, WAGGGS, and U-Report will continue to promote an ongoing exchange of approaches on youth engagement. GenU's secondee from WAGGGS will support this endeavor and play a crucial role in facilitating dialogue and sharing on youth engagement across the 5 participating partnership countries.
