WHY THIS GUIDE WAS DEVELOPED

This training guide for Introducing Youth to Humanitarian Action has been developed in support of the Compact for Young People in Humanitarian Action which was launched at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit. This Youth Compact represents an unprecedented commitment of humanitarian partners - government, civil society, United Nations and the private sector - to guarantee that the priorities of young people are addressed by the humanitarian system and their participation in humanitarian action is supported and facilitated. The Compact provides a unifying framework to guide programming for young people in humanitarian action, which can be applied by organizations regardless of size, nature or location. More than 50 humanitarian partners have endorsed the Compact and agreed to support its five key actions for accountability to young people in humanitarian action.

The compact’s five key actions

1. Make humanitarian programmes contribute to protection, health, development of young women, young men, girls, boys
2. Support systematic engagement and partnership with youth in all phases of humanitarian action, especially decision-making and budget allocations
3. Strengthen young people’s capacities to be effective humanitarian actors, and support local youth-led initiatives and organizations in humanitarian response. This includes young refugees and internally displaced persons living in informal urban settlements and slums
4. Increase resources to address the needs and priorities of adolescents and youth affected by humanitarian crises and use the new gender and age marker for better tracking and reporting
5. Generate and systematically use age- and sex-disaggregated data

In line with these commitments, Reach Out to Asia, a program of Education Above All Foundation (ROTA-EAA), launched the MENA Youth Capacity-Building in Humanitarian Action (MYCHA) Initiative in 2017 as a training platform for incubating networks, approaches, and tools to enable effective youth involvement in humanitarian action across the MENA region. The MYCHA Initiative and the Introducing Youth to Humanitarian Action–Facilitator’s Guide are designed to directly contribute to furthering the aims of Key Action 3.