Outside the Box: Amplifying youth voices and views on YPS policy and practice

A Youth-Centric Vision for Sudan: Transformative Change, Power, Peace and Transitional Justice

Sudanese youth make up over 70% of the population and have consistently proven themselves as peaceful agents of change: as leaders of the 2018/19 revolution which toppled the 30-year dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, to today providing frontline humanitarian assistance in the context of total war despite being abandoned by the international community. However, these same youth have been violently excluded from all processes of social change, including politics, peacebuilding, and transitional justice. This paper calls for the recognition of Sudanese youth as vital stakeholders in Sudan’s future and for youth inclusion in Sudan to be more than seats at the table. Rather, the paper calls for the embracing of Sudanese youth as co-designers of processes of social change to construct a durable peace and deal with the legacies of past conflict. Decades of overlapping conflicts in Sudan have affected all facets of life, creating significant mental health and psychosocial impacts on successive generations of Sudanese youth. To achieve a durable peace, this paper argues that Sudan requires a transformative approach that deals with root causes of conflict and the legacies of conflict that most affect civilians, such as mental health and psychosocial impacts.

Click the image to open the document

Authors

Shayna Lewis
Shayna Lewis is a Sudan Specialist and Human Rights Consultant. She is currently the Senior Advisor and Sudan Specialist with PAEMA - Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities and also leads Avaaz's Sudan Break the Blackout Campaign which aims to get more international media attention on the Sudan crisis. She also runs several independent advocacy projects including the Sudan News Sweep, which provides daily updates on the war in Sudan and its impacts on civilians, and is the Director of Sudan Cries Hope, an advocacy project in which young Sudanese revolutionaries reflect on their experiences and what peace, justice, and freedom mean to them today. Shayna attended Columbia University as a Fulbright Scholar where she received her MA in Human Rights Studies with a Concentration in Transitional Justice from Columbia University. She won the 2023 Columbia University Human Rights Thesis Award (Faculty Choice) for her research with survivors of the Darfur genocide about their priorities for justice, peace, and accountability.
Read More

Photographer

Faiz Abubaker
Faiz Abubakr Mohamed is a photographer based in Khartoum, Sudan and the winner of the 2022 World Press Photo Contest winner. He has a bachelor's degree in public relations from the Sudan University of Science and Technology. With this photography, Faiz Abubakr Mohamed has participated in exhibitions both in Sudan and internationally - in India, Romania, Egypt and The United Arab Emirates. His work has been shown in The New York Times and he is a member of the African Photojournalism Database, a directory of emerging and professional African visual journalists established by the World Press Photo Foundation and Everyday Africa. @faizabubak
Read More