Everyone involved in education from young people to tecahers to leaders to policy-makers are being asked some really tough questions in these current times. Do the systems and institutions that we are working and learning in still serve us? Did they ever? And what are we being called on to do differently? This week, it was such an amazing pleasure to chat with Zineb Mouhyi who is the co-founder of YouthXYouth, a global organisation that she set up with Valentina Raman, to convene action around transforming education systems but in a way that didn't excluding the core of these systems, the primary constituents that they were seeking to engage and serve: young people.
YouthXYouth invited young people around the world to see the COVID-19 pandemic crisis as an opportunity to radically reimagine learning for themselves and their communities. In January 2021, they hosted their first online Learning Festival, which gathered nearly 1000 young people and adult allies from over 80 countries around a central question: What if young people designed the future of education?
YouthXYouth has engaged over 2000 youth activists from 80 countries across 6 continents, buliding their capacity and confidence to reclaim their learning and create life-affirming futures within their communities. They are led by and serve youth who are between the ages of 15 to 26—75% of whom live in the Global South, and about 50% live in Africa.
Zineb is also one of the co-founders of the Weaving Lab (https://weavinglab.org/), an international NGO and a community of weavers learning together how to interconnect people, projects and places to form thriving systems. Prior to that, she was the Policy & Partnership Development Officer at WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education), at the Qatar Foundation in Doha, where she mainly worked on education development policy research and on bringing different education stakeholders together to bring forth collaborations in education.
Useful Links
YxY Weavership Messaging Toolkit an opportunity for young people or youth organisations who might consider hosting a Weaver-in-Residence.
YxY website: https://www.youthxyouth.com/
Weavership Application: https://airtable.com/appYm9UwzGZxELiYA/shrHR2MmpZfVclJP5
Authors mentioned during the conversation:
Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle
Loretta Ross - Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel
LinkedIn: @zinebmouhyi - https://www.linkedin.com/in/zinebmouhyi/
Instagram: @yxyactivists - https://www.instagram.com/yxyactivists/