The Power of Youth in Co-Creating Education
Every January 24, the world marks International Day of Education. This year’s theme, “The power of youth in co-creating education,” recognizes what we at Asante Africa Foundation have known from the start: young people are the architects of their own futures.
A Right, Not a Privilege
Education is a human right. It’s also a public good and a public responsibility. Yet 250 million children and youth remain out of school globally. Another 739 million adults cannot read or write. These aren’t statistics. They’re people whose potential remains locked away.
In East Africa, where we work, the numbers tell their own story. 9.3 million girls in sub-Saharan Africa will never enter a classroom. Fifty-six percent of youth face unemployment, and less than thirty percent of schools have digital learning tools.
Youth at the Center
The 2026 International Day of Education challenges us to place young people at the center of educational transformation. Not as passive learners waiting to be filled with knowledge, but as active participants who understand their own needs, design their own solutions, and drive change in their communities.
This isn’t theory for us. It’s practice.
Through our Youth Livelihoods Program, students learn entrepreneurship and build businesses. They identify gaps in their communities and create ventures to fill them. A student in Tanzania starts a poultry farm. Another in Kenya launches a reusable sanitary pad project, keeping girls in school. A young person in Uganda establishes a soap-making enterprise that teaches hygiene while generating income.
Our Wezesha Vijana Program also operates on the same principle. When girls understand their rights, their reproductive health, and their financial options, they make informed decisions about their futures. They become advocates. They educate their peers. The ripple effect extends far beyond the individual.
In our Accelerated Learning Program, we don’t just deliver content—we equip teachers with digital tools and localized resources that students help shape and refine. Learning becomes a conversation, not a lecture.
Breaking Cycles
Without quality education, countries cannot achieve gender equality or break cycles of poverty. The data supports this. So do the stories.
We’ve seen girls rescued from early marriage return to school and become advocates for other girls. We’ve watched students become the first in their families to graduate from university. We’ve observed young entrepreneurs employ their neighbors, transforming not just their own prospects but their communities’ economic landscape.
Education shifts entire ecosystems.
Co-Creation in Practice
Co-creating education means more than consulting young people. It means building systems where their voices carry weight in decisions that affect them. It means recognizing that a student in rural Kenya might understand what that community needs better than experts in distant capitals.
When we design programs, we listen. When students propose projects through our Enterprise Challenge, we provide resources and mentorship, but the vision is theirs. When girls in our Wezesha Vijana Program identify barriers to education in their schools, we work with them to address those barriers—we don’t impose external solutions.
This approach demands humility. It requires adults to step back and trust that young people, given the right tools and support, will find their way forward. Sometimes they’ll stumble. Often, they’ll surprise us.
Looking Forward…
As we observe International Day of Education, the urgency is clear. Climate change, technological disruption, persistent inequality; these challenges require fresh thinking and bold action. Young people bring both.
At Asante Africa Foundation, we’re not waiting for the future. We’re building it alongside the youth we serve in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. They’re not beneficiaries of our programs. They’re partners, innovators, and leaders.
The power of youth in co-creating education is a reality we witness every day – in every business launched, every barrier overcome, every community transformed by young people who refused to accept limits placed on them.
Education will transform when we stop teaching young people about the world and start learning from them about the world they’re building.
Join us in empowering East Africa’s youth. Learn more about our programs and impact at asanteafrica.org, or support young people as they create their futures by making a donation today.