Nothing About Youth Without Youth: Advancing Decent Work and Social Justice Together

Описание: Young people are not just passive recepients of employment policies and programmes - they are rights-holders, innovators, and agents of change. Yet, too often, decisions that affect their lives are made without their meaningful participation.

This webinar will highlight what meaningful youth engagement looks like in practice and how it can be leveraged to advance decent work and social justice for and with young people, particularly those most vulnerable such as refugees and forcibly displaced youth whose voices are amongst the least heard in decision-making spaces.

Anchored in the principle of “nothing about youth without youth,” the session will provide a platform to share the the outcomes of the 2026 Gyeonggi-ILO International Labour Festa and present the Youth Call to Action emerging from it, amplifying young people’s priorities, demands, and solutions related to accessing decent work, labour rights, and inclusive labour markets.

The webinar will also introduce participants to Meaningful Youth Engagement for Decent Work: A training package on engaging young people in employment programmes, a practical tool developed under the PROSPECTS Programme to support youth employment practitioners engage young people more systematically and meaningfully across employment programmes, with a particular focus on refugees and forcibly displaced youth.

Through youth-led perspectives, reflections from social partners and youth employment practitioners, and intergenerational dialogue, the webinar will critically assess how young people are currently engaged across employment programmes and initiatives, and identify remaining gaps and challenges. The session will facilitate a conversation where participants can learn from each other in exploring practical entry points to institutionalise meaningful youth engagement within their own organisations, policies and initiatives.

Ultimately, the webinar seeks to catalyse a shift from designing programmes for young people to designing with them, reaffirming that advancing decent work and social justice for youth needs youth leadership, voices and lived experiences to be embedded throughout decision-making processes.

Objectives:
➤ Promote a shared understanding of meaningful youth engagement beyond tokenism, and its value in shaping more responsive and inclusive youth employment interventions.
➤ Facilitate intergenerational dialogue, learning and the exchange of good practices among youth employment practitioners on advancing meaningful youth engagement for decent work and social justice.
➤ Amplify youth voices as expressed in the Youth Call to Action and highlight young people’s priorities, demands and solutions related to advancing the goals of the Global Coalition for Social Justice.
➤ Introduce Meaningful Youth Engagement for Decent Work: A training package on engaging young people in employment programmes as a tool to capacitate and support youth employment practitioners in better engaging with young people in their work.

Audience
➤ Members of the Global Coalition for Social Justice
➤ Representatives of employers’ and workers’ organizations
➤ Youth networks and organizations, including refugee youth-led organisations
➤ Youth employment stakeholders, including policymakers and development practitioners
➤ Organizations working with forcibly displaced people

Date and format
➤ Date: 18 February 2026
➤ Duration: 90 mins
➤ Format: Online Webinar via Zoom
➤ Time: 10:30 AM - 12:00PM CET