Focuses on youth-led empowerment, resilience, civic engagement and community transformation across Africa
Website: theyouthcafe.com
Why useful: strong example of youth taking leadership, building their own safe spaces and networks.
A youth-led movement driving leadership, civic engagement, and resilience across Africa.
Young people co-design programmes that strengthen communities and amplify youth voices.
Empowers youth through life-skills training, peer education, and health awareness campaigns.
A model of peer mentorship and youth advocacy in action.
Trains youth innovators and community leaders across the Arab region.
Why it matters: Builds leadership capacity and supports youth-led solutions to local challenges.
Helps youth build personal and community resilience through skills, assets, and leadership opportunities.
Shows how youth leadership strengthens entire communities.
Supports youth in marginalized communities to become active citizens and changemakers.
Youth design and lead their own community action projects.
Funds 600+ youth-led projects around the world advancing gender equality, wellbeing, and resilience.
Demonstrates how small youth-led ideas can spark big change.
Provides psychosocial and peer-support tools for young people in crisis-affected areas.
Highlights the power of emotional resilience and supportive peer networks.
A global youth-led volunteer movement that inspires social action and leadership.
Young people turning empathy into action and leading community change.
Focuses on mentoring and emotional competence in youth through school and community programs.
A great model for peer-mentoring and emotional wellbeing.
Helps vulnerable youth in the Caribbean build resilience, leadership, and community engagement.
Connects leadership training with safe-space creation and family support.
Europe-wide | safespace4youth.eu
A youth-led programme that equips young people to become peer leaders in mental health and wellbeing. Through workshops and interactive learning, participants develop emotional awareness, communication skills, and tools for creating inclusive, safe spaces.
Demonstrates the full Resilience Champion journey — from leadership growth to peer mentoring and safe-space building.
Europe-wide | safespacesproject.eu
This project helps create welcoming and protective environments for young refugees and asylum seekers. Youth participants co-design safe spaces that promote belonging, inclusion, and empowerment.
A leading example of youth-driven inclusion and the power of safe environments to build resilience.
EU Collaboration | interregeurope.eu/harmony
HARMONY brings together European partners to strengthen youth mental health and community wellbeing. The project promotes leadership through cooperation between young people, educators, and policymakers.
Shows how youth leadership and community connection reinforce emotional resilience.
Greece | European Commission Project
In this initiative, young mentors — many of whom were once unaccompanied minors — are trained to support others through mentorship and group activities.
Why it matters: A strong model of peer mentoring, trust-building, and empowerment through shared experience.
Council of Europe | coe.int
This study session gathered young leaders across Europe to explore how youth spaces can adapt, remain inclusive, and respond to social challenges. Participants shared practical tools to make youth environments more resilient and youth-led.
Highlights collaboration and youth participation in shaping safe, inclusive environments.
Slovenia & Balkans | youthnetworks.net
A creative and reflective training course for youth workers and young leaders focused on mental health, emotional regulation, and wellbeing.
Builds emotional intelligence and resilience within youth communities — helping young people lead with calm and compassion.
When the war in Ukraine displaced millions of families, Poland became both a refuge and a new challenge. For hundreds of thousands of young people who crossed the border, safety was only the beginning. They had to rebuild their identity, community, and confidence in a country that felt unfamiliar.
In Croatia, a group of high school students from Josip Slavenski Čakovec High School in Čakovec saw an opportunity to bridge generations and build community resilience. As part of the UPSHIFT social-entrepreneurship programme (run by UNICEF Croatia within the larger ZABUM initiative) they designed a project called “Grandchildren’s Club Čakovec.”
Watch the recording of our YOUTH BUILD webinar on resilience, mental health and the ASSESS–BUILD–LEAD framework for supporting vulnerable youth.
YOUTH BUILD held its 2nd webinar on 12 August, focusing on resilience, mental health, safe adults and the ASSESS–BUILD–LEAD framework for youth empowerment.
Over 20 trainers and youth learners from across Europe joined the first YOUTH BUILD webinar on 30 July 2025 to explore resilience tools and youth challenges.
YOUTH BUILD partners met on July 17 in Poland for the final evaluation meeting, reviewing project results, piloting feedback and planning long-term use of resilience tools.
