International advocacy

The World Children’s Summit held in New York (2002) stressed that children have the right to be free of violence and of discrimination and that they are entitled to education and health care. Rutgers Nisso Groep’s international programme for youth and sexuality, Youth Incentives, bases its core values on this rights-based approach. Youth Incentives actively promotes these rights and contributes to ensuring that young people can exercise and advocate for them both nationally and internationally.

In order to improve the conditions for young people to exercise their rights, Youth Incentives actively advocates for a Rights, Acceptance and Participation, RAP-based environment. Such advocacy takes place on different levels: at a local (community) level, a national level (in The Netherlands and in Youth Incentives Fund Countries) and an international level.

At a local level, Youth Incentives works in close collaboration with multiple community stakeholders - teachers, religious leaders, health workers, community based distributors, parents, counsellors, volunteers, youth organisations and local authorities - in order to promote a positive approach towards young people’s sexuality. Improvement of the conditions for young people to exercise their Sexual Reproductive Rights takes place through increasing understanding and support from communities and local authorities with regard to the RAP-rule and project interventions.

At a national level, Youth Incentives supports its partners both financially and technically (training) in strengthening their advocacy efforts and networks. At the Dutch national level there is close collaboration with World Population Foundation (WPF), and Youth Incentives participates in several national coalitions, such as the Dutch Platform for the Millennium Development Goals. At the international level Youth Incentives undertakes advocacy activities in coalition with IPPF and other NGOs like the Women’s Global Network Reproductive Rights.

For an example of the practical work we do on advocacy please refer to the section on conferences and the RAP Song Project.