Our Mission

Giving Youth Skills and Support

for Positive Change in Communities

We are Youth Plus Policy Network Uganda (YPPN-U) affectionately known as Youthplus, a community development organisation that helps young people make their communities better.

We believe young people have the power to change communities for the better.

Our goal is to give young people the skills and support they need to be leaders and make positive changes in their communities. We create opportunities and spaces for young people to lead efforts to address the issues that impact them.

We are local and home grown champions of youth- and community-led change and social transformation in Uganda. Since 2005, our work has focused on climate action, right to health, right to education and youth leadership.

Vision

Our vision is for a society where every young person to has the chance to be their best and help their community.

Our Mission

Our mission is to empower the youth, wherever they are from, to be active in the community. We aim to support youth to have a voice and act, inspire them to have a positive impact, and gain recognition for their positive contribution to communities, society and the world. We aim to make communities stronger, more inclusive, and better connected.

Our Story

Youthplus began in Uganda in 2005, founded by 12 young people who joined the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) – Get On Board Campaign led by ActionAid. This campaign aimed to push world leaders to act on problems like debt, aid, and HIV/AIDS. Our work focuses on involving young people in communities to make positive changes.

We have four main strategies: managing knowledge, engaging, participating, and advocating; inspiring and nurturing leaders; and finding solutions to community problems.
We create and put into action new ideas led by young people to fix the unfairness they face in society. We’re working hard to meet the urgent needs of young people in a world that’s changing quickly.

From 2020 to 2030, our plan is to deal with health issues affecting young people, especially HIV/AIDS, and get more young people involved in making society better.
Since 2012, we have been working on supporting the rights of young people regarding sexual and reproductive health in local communities. We’ve also been working to reduce judgment and stigma around abortion and make it easier for people to get the help they need in Kampala and Wakiso districts.

Alongside partners like ActionAid, IPAS African Alliance, and Global Access Programme (Health Gap), we’ve launched efforts to make sure everyone in places like Kampala, Mukono, and Wakiso knows about safe choices in reproductive health care.
We’ve created and started using good ways to get communities involved, like “Act for What You Believe” (AWB), which uses discussions and drama to deal with community problems, and “Vital Signs for Vital Conversations,” a method from Community Foundations that helps communities have important talks.

We believe that youth can create positive change by getting involved in finding solutions to community problems and sharing their stories to inspire others. We advocate for youth by highlighting their challenges, helping them come up with solutions, and bringing them together with decision-makers. When decision-makers understand these challenges and solutions, they’re ready to take action.

Our work focuses on managing knowledge, finding solutions, and building relationships between youth, local and national government, and stakeholders. We ensure that policies and programs address the challenges young people face in ways that they want.

For example, we work on combination HIV prevention amongst adolescent girls and young women by providing information on combination prevention information to the fishing communities in the Lake Victoria Basin (LVB). We train young people who have lived experiences to talk to their peers about combination HIV prevention and how to access safe and reliable care. We started this work with technical and generous support of Viiv Healthcare Positive Action.

We’re active members of the Coalition to Stop Maternal Mortality due to unsafe Abortion in Uganda (CSMMUA) and contribute to the Motion Tracker, which tracks Sexual and Reproductive Health Services uptake. We have experience working with peri-urban communities in Uganda including fishing communities in the LVB, where we’re based.