This April, five new members joined the CIVICUS Youth Action Team (YAT). They were elected by CIVICUS youth voting members and will serve a renewable 18-month term until September 2020. Their role will be to mainstream youth and youth issues into CIVICUS’ programmes and activities and to champion youth engagement and civic space.
New members Joshua Alade and Daniel Nwaeze will be representing Africa; Justin Francis Bionat and Anastasia Hengestu will be representing Asia, and Wiem Chamsi will be representing the Middle East and Northern Africa. They will be joining current YAT members Amanda Segnini and Ana Pranjic (the Americas) as well as Betty Barkha (Pacific).
Former YAT members Max Seunik, Fideline Mboringong, Angga D. Martha, Stefan Manevski and Sebastián Vielmas ended their terms in March. We thank them deeply for their great contribution to the YAT during the past three years, and we are looking forward to their future accomplishments in building fair, inclusive and sustainable societies.
Here’s more on the five new YAT members:
Anastasia Hengestu, Indonesia
Tasia is an 18 year-old undergraduate student in Department of Biology at University of Indonesia. She is currently a member of AIESEC as well as UIAC (Universitas Indonesia Achievement Community), where she contributes with public relations work. Besides her activities in her university, she does volunteering and mentoring. She volunteered for Youth Agricareture (YACT), an event that was held in November 2018 to introduce food diversification to teenagers and adults in Bogor, Indonesia. Find her on Instagram: @anath_tasia.
Watch her YAT application video here.
Daniel Nwaeze, Nigeria
Daniel is the media and communications coordinator at Afrika Youth Movement; a youth-led movement with over 10,000 members in over 41 countries and 15 country hubs. He is passionate about everything youth, media and information literacy. He has led successful media campaigns to redesign narratives about young people, such as #ShapeNarratives, #SexyFarming Campaign and #iLoveMyContinent. He is also the founder of Diplomacy Opp, a platform that connects young people globally to development opportunities and media and information literacy-related learning currently with over 50,000 active membership across all platforms.
Watch his YAT application video here.
Joshua Alade, Nigeria
Joshua is a sustainability advocate and a Positive Youth Development Trainer with NextGen Africa Initiative. He obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He currently serves as a Program Officer at Sahara Foundation and the Project Coordinator of the Nigeria Youth SDGs Network. Through his work, he advocates for the rights of young people from disadvantaged communities and their active participation in the developmental agenda of his country. He tweets via @iamjoshuaalade.
Watch his YAT application video here.
Justin Francis Bionat, Philippines
Justin is a passionate human rights defender from the Philippines. He is currently taking his Masters of Arts in Human Rights and Democratisation from the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies, Mahidol University, Thailand. He has had local, national and regional experience in human rights work for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) communities. He currently works as regional coordinator of Youth Voices Count (YVC), a regional network of young LGBTIQ persons in the Asia-Pacific region on several sexual and reproductive health and human rights issues. He brings together both field and academic experience in human rights.
Watch his YAT application video here.
Wiem Chamsi, Tunisia
Wiem is a Master's student in Management of Organizations with a focus on NGOs and civil society development. She studied social entrepreneurship in the University of Connecticut in the USA and she was an Ashoka Fellow. She has a passion for driving change and youth empowerment. She was chosen as a global innovation pioneer with the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent societies. She has taken part in many international youth programs (such as the North Africa UN Model, the Mediterranean University, AIESEC, Hult Prize, UNDP...) by working on solving different global issues and advocating for youth participation. She also launched the Youth For Change Sousse/Tunisia initiative to promote investment in sustainable development through youth leadership.
Watch her YAT application video here.