In our latest episode of “On Human Rights” we spoke with Dennis Mungo, the executive Director of Youth Alive Kenya, a youth led non-governmental organisation that advocates for and supports youth participation in development processes. We discussed his work and talked about youth inclusion and human rights in Kenya.
Youth Alive! Kenya (YAK) is a youth led and youth serving Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). YAK’s vision is a society in which young people are empowered and take active responsibility for their lives. In particular, Dennis works to break the self-perpetuating cycle of exclusion of young people so that they may actively chart and address issues affecting their well-being and development by empowering and providing a platform for them to amplify their voice in the development discourse. Dennis has over a decade of experience and a passion for working on human rights programming, governance and access to justice. He has previously worked with the Kenyan Correctional Services and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Law from the University of London. He is currently also pursuing a Master’s Degree in Public Policy and Administration.
In the podcast, Dennis talks about the programmes that YAK runs, for example on youth unemployment and youth inclusion in governance, and how they cooperate with Swedish organisations. Dennis sees the exclusion of youth and their problems from decisions making processes as a global problem and wants to change this. Because, as he puts it:
We are always told that youth are leaders of tomorrow, but no; we are not leaders of tomorrow, we are leaders of today!