Nihinlola (Lola) Ayanda, kommunikationskoordinator i Action Aid, Nigeria

Empowering young people to create lasting change

All around the world, young people have a burning dream to bring about lasting and just change. Our most important aim is to keep those dreams alive – and to support activists, social movements, organizations and networks so that they can fight oppression and violence.

The path to lasting change

We believe that the right path to lasting change is to organize people and create change together. We believe that people in vulnerable and oppressed situations are entitled to know about their rights and to organize and fight for those rights. Working with people around the world, we push for political change and ensure access to schools, health clinics, clean water and more. We call this work rights-based development.

Young people and women can change the world

We primarily work with young people and women around the world – and support them in creating change.

These long-term efforts often require many years of work before the effects become evident. For example, in 2021 our years-long struggle to get engaged young people active in democratic efforts in Zambia resulted in a significant increase of youth participation in the country’s democratic elections. And through past efforts in Gambia, we built a solid and strong network of committed activists who successfully pushed for a more democratic Gambia.

Global Platforms - Schools around the world

We carry out our work in collaboration with a wide range of local organizations and through our Global Platforms.

Global Platforms is a worldwide network of schools that offer courses on human rights, global citizenship, campaign planning, entrepreneurship, volunteering, communication and social media. We provide courses and capacity-building support for organizations and young people who want to help create positive change in their society.

Establishing platforms in some of the world’s poorest countries is part of ActionAid Denmark’s strategy to create a more just world community by supporting the rights of people living in poverty and oppression.

Our humanitarian work

In our humanitarian work, we support people when disaster strikes.

We help people in need after disasters and crises, we protect people’s rights and support the affected communities so that they are stronger after rebuilding than before the disaster struck. We provide support in a wide range of disaster areas around the world – and we are always at the ready to deploy help where needed.

A global organization

We are part of ActionAid International, working in 40 countries for a world free of poverty and injustice.

ActionAid’s headquarters are located in Johannesburg, South Africa. This makes us the only large international development organization headquartered in Africa. We also have offices in Asia, North, South and Central America, and Europe.

Technical coaching for organisations, social movements and young people

We provide targeted technical coaching to local organisations, social movements and young people, through the Advisors and Inspirators who are deployed through the People4Change programme.

Advisors and Inspirators function as mentors for the young people who fight for political change. They work where the young people live, so they are easily accessible for the young people on a day to day basis. Our Advisors and Inspirators always come from a different place than where they work. By coming from a different area in the same country or different country allows them to bring new and alternative perspectives on how challenges can be solved.

Please read more about our programme