Youth SDG- SpeakUp; StandOut Network of Youth for Sustainable Initiative is a movement of young Nigerians committed to speaking out to change the situation of young people in Nigeria. This project is concerned about the widespread unethical practice of altered information by pro-government agencies, concealing evidence, exaggerating truths aimed at misinforming the public, political disenfranchisement, and government incessant clampdown on dissents. They  seek to lead a campaign to speak up and stand out through counter-narratives, organize training on digital security and media and information literacy (MIL); push for accountability, greater political participation and to influence and/or bring a stop to unfavourable policy changes being proposed by the government.

In details, the Nigeria Youth SDGs Network(NGYouthSDGs), Center For Youth Advocacy and Development (CEYAD), and Afrika Youth Movement (AYM) will lead on ensuring young people can air their voices, demand accountability, and see a fair equitable system including whereactivists, dissidents and especially youth-led and youth-focused groups are well represented and better equipped.

First is engagement on digital security and MIL. The events of 2020 exposed the weakness of activists and youth organizations digital infrastructure and understanding of the media landscape. This training will focus on facilitating and understanding the essentials of digital security for activists and will stretch to provide access to premium security features for select activists due to heightened government surveillance and clampdowns and attacks on legal financial support for the works of young activists and dissidents.

This will be followed with MIL. MIL as noted by UNESCO provides answers to the questions on: how can we access, search, critically assess, use and contribute content wisely, both onlineand offline? How can we engage with media and ICTs to promote equality, intercultural and interreligious dialogue, peace, freedom of expression and access to information? The target here will be 15 activists and dissidents focusing on 3 of the rightsholders group: young people, people with disabilities and ethnic minorities. They hope to retrain them on creative mobilizing and digital campaigning. They will work additionally with journalists and bloggers to better amplify the stories of the activists and dissidents. including support with premium access to digital security features to protect them from government surveillance and clampdowns and the possibility of an internet shutdown.

Following this is youth engagement on accountability, social justice and political participation. They hope to follow a design thinking approach, adopt a train-the-trainer mobiliser model and build a toolkit. This will ensure a level of social and political consciousness among the populace; drive massive needs to enrol to the voters registry, make sound demands and use the power of the ballot to cause a radical change in the political system to make it work for young people and accommodating activists and dissidents.

Adopting a Training of Trainer model, the target for this is a total of 50 youth trainers within the3 rightsholders group of Voice with proven records of grassroots engagements. This will cover a minimum of 15 youth trainers acrossAbuja, Enugu, and Lagos.