Across all the humanitarian disarmament sector, youth campaigners have been making change at the grassroots and at the international level for decades. MAC recognizes though that a lot of humanitarian disarmament work was not designed to give youth, especially young women, a seat at the table.
We work with young people around the world to ensure that their expertise and their viewpoints are taken into account when disarmament decisions are made.
- MAC’s Mine Action Fellows Program contributes to reducing the humanitarian and development impact of landmines and cluster bombs by providing resources and training to mine action and development organizations and youth from around the world. The Mine Action Fellows program focuses especially on young women due to the longstanding under representation of women in disarmament.
- The resources and training are meant to build the capacity of young people to be effective delivery agents of mine action, including advocacy, victim assistance and mine risk education and build the capacity of the organizations to utilize young people in their work.
- Mine Action Fellows forums and workshops are opportunities for mutual information sharing between sectors, and capacity building for both on how to more effectively utilize a prime resource: youth. The youth participants will be cross-pollinators between sectors, integrating mine action objectives into development programs and vice-versa.
- The Mine Action Fellows Program includes international youth forums organized alongside major international meetings on cluster bombs and landmines; monthly capacity building materials; and a small grants program.
- MAC also has online resources for youth campaigners looking to develop their leadership and campaigning skills.
- MAC has produced a manual on the best practices of working with youth for a mine-free world, which is available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian
- MAC also has online resources for youth campaigners looking to develop their leadership and campaigning skills.