Today’s youth are made up of incredible, talented individuals who care about the world and their impact on it. They advocate for human rights, they show up for underserved communities, lead innovative solutions for global problems, and don’t back down in the face of injustice. But during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, young people were not regarded as agents of change, but drivers of the deadly virus that has killed more than 7 million people around the world.
In an effort to change this narrative, the world’s largest youth-focused organizations, collectively known as the Big Six — inclusive of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), World Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), the World Alliance of Young Men’s Christian Associations (World YMCA), World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), and The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award — came together to launch Global Youth Mobilization (GYM), an initiative designed to highlight how young people were leading response efforts against COVID-19.
“Global Youth Mobilization could not have come at a better time,” Michelle Chew, GYM Youth Board Representative from the IFRC, told Global Citizen. “Our fund launched to showcase how young people were being discounted [during the pandemic] even as they created positive impact through their advocacy efforts.”
After five years, GYM evolved from an emergency response into a long-term engine for youth empowerment. With a particular focus on intergenerational leadership, the fund hopes to model inclusive ways for organizations to partner with youth.
Global Youth Mobilization began as a COVID-19 response, when six youth organizations united to support young people leading community responses. Since then, it has grown into a global movement funding and mentoring thousands of youth-led projects.
An innovative project to highlight global youth advocacy
Building on the meaningful outcomes of their COVID-19 response efforts, GYM launched a partnership with the European Union in 2023 to deliver the Youth Empowerment Fund (YEF), a flagship of the EU’s Youth Action Plan. The $11 million initiative supports youth-led solutions advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals in local communities by providing funding, capacity building, and networking opportunities — creating a positive feedback loop between grassroots youth innovation and global development priorities.
“Young people are talking to us about four main topics that are important to them, and that they want to address: mental health, access to jobs, climate issues, and peace,” Carlos Madjri Sanvee, Secretary General of World YMCA and Chair of the Global Youth Mobilization Board, told Global Citizen. “How do we leverage the good work [they are already doing] and add additional value to it?”
This question reflects a broader global shift toward treating young people as partners in shaping decisions that affect their lives, rather than just beneficiaries.
While the Big Six collectively reach more than 250 million people, their collaborative fund wants to dramatically expand its reach to more youth and their communities. Already, they have collaborated with the UN Youth Office — a first-of-its-kind United Nations entity mandated to advance meaningful youth engagement around the world — to form a strategic partnership to amplify young people’s voices in policy and decision-making spaces and champion youth priorities.
Recently, the GYM announced its latest selection of awardees as part of the YEF’s 2025 open call cycle. Since its partnership with the EU, the Youth Empowerment Fund supports more than 1,800 youth-led projects with an estimated reach to over 2 million people in local communities across Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
In Brazil, a local group is launching a series of training workshops designed to support 60 youth participants in gaining skills across sustainability, advocacy, and community mobilization. In addition, they will document progress through the PodSustentar? podcast focused on sharing participant stories and spreading climate knowledge, with a goal to showcase how young innovators are building climate solutions with lasting impact in their communities.
A grant was also awarded to a project in Malawi focused on increasing economic opportunities for young girls and women. Entitled, We Are Building, the initiative will provide hands-on training opportunities in literacy, marketing, customer service, and other areas. The overall aim is to help girls find employment and reduce the risk of early marriages, teenage pregnancies, and economic dependence.
“We know that the problems we are trying to solve are bigger than anyone can solve by themselves, and we want young people to have the agency to become changemakers in their communities,” Sanvee said.
How GYM walks the talk
Through GYM’s youth-led model, young people are at the heart of the initiative, taking the lead on all aspects of decision-making — from assessing applications and providing feedback, to supporting mentorship programs. As a result, six youth representatives and six CEOs coming from each of the Big Six collaborate on GYM’s leadership board, creating an intergenerational dialogue that challenges the status quo of how organizations operate.
“Young people are the leaders in everything we do. We pair them with senior CEOs, who in the past provided coaching, but we’re also working on a reverse mentorship program where the youth will be coaching us,” Sanvee said.
This model led IFRC to nominate Michelle Chew as their youth representative for GYM.
Chew started volunteering with the Malaysian Red Crescent Society as a teenager. She was inspired by the organization's mission of community service, particularly when it came to helping others during times of crisis. After witnessing how youth volunteers jumped to support communities in need during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, she wanted to be part of a bigger activation that showcased young people as the problem-solvers they are.
“COVID-19 disrupted my education, but it also allowed me to become part of a lot of positive action,” Chew told Global Citizen. “My role as a youth board representative allows me to speak up for young people, as well as speak to the young advocates who are creating waves in the world.”
GYM’s operational model is replicated in how the initiative supports grantees. Rather than simply providing funds, the project also addresses skill gaps to make youth-led projects stronger and more sustainable. Leaning on the Big Six’s overarching network of millions of people worldwide, the collective provides mentorship and skill-building workshops to grantees, covering areas like contract and budget management to communications, advocacy, and storytelling. This way, youth leaders have more tools and resources to scale up their projects.
One of Chew’s most memorable grantees is Wheels of Wisdom, a youth-led mobile library project that aimed to increase access to learning materials in Bangladesh during the height of the COVID-19 crisis. Thanks to support provided by GYM, Wheels of Wisdom was able to expand itsoperations to other parts of Bangladesh and purchase more materials to serve children who had to leave school in order to support their families financially. In 2022, the project earned another grant under the EIFL Library Innovation Award.
“Our support — through funding, mentorship, and access to important resources — helped this initiative grow from an idea into a long-term solution. From there, their team was able to secure more grants [from other sources] and continue growing,” Chew said.
By putting young leaders at the decision-making table, GYM is helping communities build practical solutions to today’s most urgent challenges.
Take action with and for youth
The world is still working to recover from the global development setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Increases in authoritarian regimes, cutbacks to global aid budgets, and the growth of the anti-rights movement have all contributed to an urgent need for youth-led solutions.
“The world is more and more polarized. We’re focused on resourcing young people who can bridge this gap between people,” Sanvee said.
GYM has already engaged more than 2 million young people across 140+ countries since December 2020. Future phases of this work will expand GYM’s presence to more countries, connecting with members of the Big Six through projects that will help communities adapt to a changing world.
To keep moving forward and boost youth perspectives in decision-making spaces, more young people need to take action. At the same time, institutions — from global movements like GYM to multilateral bodies working with the UN — are being called to create space for youth leadership at every level.
“Our generation is quite an altruistic one,” Chew told Global Citizen. “Young people are passionate about a lot of different causes, and they have great ideas on how to solve different issues. All of these ideas are worth listening to — we just need to give them a chance.”
The open call for the next round of applications to the Youth Empowerment Fund (YEF) will open at a later date in 2026. To get the latest updates on the YEF 2026 Open Call and learn more about Global Youth Mobilization’s initiative, visit the GYM website and follow GYM on Instagram, Facebook, and X for the latest updates.