On 3 April, Fentse Malatji and Clotilde Angelucci from Youth Capital talked to us about their latest advocacy campaign in our April Open Network Series webinar.
The team gathered 25 000 signatures (and counting) from across civil society and youth populations, for their latest petition. How did they go about doing it? Let’s look at some takeouts from the session.
Who are Youth Capital?
Youth Capital are a campaign that advocates for policy change to solve unemployment leveraging both research and young people’s lived experiences. They identify and shine a light on the roadblocks that hold young people back, and drive solutions by collaborating with young people, civil society, and decisions-makers.
What was their campaign about?
Youth Capital were advocating for the continued funding of the Presidential Employment Stimulus (PES) programme through a petition addressed to the Minister of Finance and the National Treasury.
They ran their petition from July to October 2023.
The goal was to build a case load of signatures representing young people, school communities, decision makers, and civil society to make it clear to Treasury that the PES programme was a critical and effective way to support learners in our education system and provide employment for teacher’s assistants.
Key learnings: Messaging
Aside from refining their delivery of the campaign across their channels, the biggest learning was around messaging and engagement flows.
The. team identified three areas they could capitalise on to get attention and participation they needed:
- To make the audience aware that the problem exists.
- To convince their audience that the issue was important enough to warrant action.
- To provide pathways for practising this awareness by providing a relevant call to action.
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Fentse and Clo say:“Messaging that resonates with your audiences is key!” |
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Insights for your practice
Here are three key points for your own advocacy campaign work:
- Understand the existing belief systems within your audience cluster; this will assist in building impactful messaging.
- Choose messaging that resonates with your audiences (not just with you) and that will spark conversation – let your audience map guide you.
- Be consistent with driving key communication points: Incorporate messaging within your strategic communications planning for the year.
Want to see the presentation? Take a scroll through Youth Capital’s slides from the session:
>> Visit Youth Capital’s website
Are you interested in signing up for our Open Network to learn and gain valuable insights from our webinars and other opportunities?
Joining our community of like-minded practitioners could be just what you’re looking for.
>> Sign up to our Open Workshop series community now!
