INTERNATIONAL YOUTH DAY DISCOURSE 2.0
Different Contexts,
common aspirations
Inside the international Youth Day Discourse 2.0
International Youth Day Discourse 2.0 Session
On Saturday, 15 August 2026, YouthXcel Africa marked International Youth Day with the International Youth Day Discourse 2.0, a virtual conversation that brought together young people from across the continent to talk honestly about opportunity, about what stands in the way of it, and about what it actually takes to reach it. The theme for this year, Different Contexts, Common Aspirations, ran through everything that was said. It is a simple idea with a lot inside it, that young people growing up in very different circumstances are still reaching for the same things, an education, decent work, and a fair chance to build a life, even when the road to get there looks nothing alike from one place to the next.
Close to 60 young people joined from countries across Africa, alongside 4 speakers who each brought a different vantage point on the theme, and a moderator who held the conversation together from opening to close. Over the course of the session, the discussion moved from the realities of access, to the role of technology, to a personal account of chasing opportunity, to the work YouthXcel Africa is building to change the odds for young people going forward. Here is how it unfolded.
Setting the tone
The moderator, Mariam Muhammed Lawal, opened the session by naming exactly what the day was about. Young people on the call were joining from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zambia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Liberia, Mali, Belgium, and beyond, a room that, on its own, made the theme visible before a single speaker had taken the floor.
“Young people across different realities and different backgrounds are reaching for the same thing, education, decent work, and a fair chance to build a life. What is different is that the journey to reach there looks completely different.”
— Mariam Muhammed Lawal, Programs and Partnership Lead, YouthXcel Africa Nigeria
With that framing in place, she introduced the first of 4 speakers, each given roughly 10 to 12 minutes to speak to their part of the theme, before the floor opened for audience questions.
Different contexts, common aspirations
Nardos Berehe opened the panel, drawing on years of work across humanitarian and development contexts, from South Sudan and the Central African Republic to Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Zambia, and beyond. She named the gap plainly, that Africa’s talent is not the problem. What is missing, more often, is access.
“Talent is everywhere in Africa. However, opportunities are not. There is a real gap between the talent we have on hand and the opportunities on the other end, and that gap comes down to access, the right information, the right network, and guidance to turn potential into something real.”
— Nardos Berehe, Youth Advisor & Global Development Professional Ethiopia
She returned to this idea later in the session, when a participant asked what she wished more young people knew about funding and opportunity. Her answer resisted a single, easy formula.
“It is really not a one size fits all. What works for me at the moment might not work for someone else, because they are experiencing something else. The best thing you can do is know where you are, identify what you actually need to get there, and then go after those resources.”
— Nardos Berehe
Technology as a bridge
Mohammed Bayero Yayandi, an engineer and digital development specialist, took the conversation into technology, not as a solution in itself, but as a bridge that only works once a young person has built the skill to walk across it. He opened with a simple observation about the session itself, a group of young people from different countries, gathered without the cost of travel, made possible only by the tools in their hands.
“Technology has become a bridge connecting everybody. But with all these tools, you cannot just wake up and start using them. You need experience, and you build experience by learning skills.”
— Mohammed Bayero Yayandi, Founder/CEO, YandyTech Community Nigeria
He walked participants through a practical starting point, a 3 day exercise in honest self assessment, matching natural strengths, whether creative, analytical, or persuasive, to a realistic starting path in technology, from UI and UX design to data analysis, programming, or digital marketing. He was direct about what actually opens doors after that, and it was not qualifications.
“You cannot outsmart your way to the top. Whatever skill you learn, look at it as a way to solve a real problem for someone, not as a way to ask for help. Volunteer with that mindset, and the people you helped for free are the first people who call you when a paid opportunity comes.”
— Mohammed Bayero Yayandi
Asked later how a young person with only a basic phone and limited data should begin, his answer was grounded rather than technical, that the first resource most young people overlook is the people already around them, family and friends who can help bridge the gap while momentum builds.
A story of opportunity
Jacquiline Msambila brought the conversation from theory into lived experience. She trained as a philosopher, not a technologist, and described candidly how unclear her own path once looked, a philosophy degree in a region where opportunity often demands a title people already recognise. What changed things was not a single opportunity, but a habit of showing up for small, free ones, a basic computing course, a coding workshop, and eventually a decision to start teaching what little she knew to others.
“I did not study technology. I learned along the way, because I wanted a skill that could get me somewhere. The moment I started teaching other girls what little I knew, that was when I decided I wanted to be fully in tech.”
— Jacquiline Msambila, Digital Transformation and AI Governance Specialist, GIZ Tanzania Tanzania
She was equally honest about rejection, describing folders in her own inbox, one labelled try again, and one labelled wins, and the discipline of returning to the second one whenever the first grew heavier.
“Apply for things you think you are not qualified for. I know you are afraid, but do it anyway. Do it scared. I have a folder labelled try again, and a folder labelled wins. Whenever I am discouraged, I go back to the wins.”
— Jacquiline Msambila
Her closing advice centred on documentation and storytelling, the discipline of recording even the smallest acts of impact, because the application that eventually opens a door is rarely the first one written. It is the one built on a record of work already done.
“Document your work, no matter how small you think it is. The application that gets you in is the one that can prove, clearly, the impact you have already made.”
— Jacquiline Msambila
Building an opportunity ecosystem
The final speaker was Abdulazeez Musa, founder of YouthXcel Africa. Before introducing the organisation’s work, he spoke about where the idea began, growing up in Okene, Kogi State, through a period of violent unrest that, he explained, was allowed to take root partly because so many young people around him had no path forward beyond their immediate environment.
“A lot of the young people then could not think beyond their immediate environment. There was no opportunity, no exposure. People could not dream bigger than where they were.”
— Abdulazeez Musa, Founder and Strategic Lead, YouthXcel Africa Nigeria
That experience, he said, shaped a conviction that stayed with him through university and into the years after, that opportunity is not simply something to talk about, but a system that has to be understood and built, deliberately, gap by gap.
“Different contexts, common aspirations is one of the most powerful themes I have seen since I first knew of International Youth Day. It recognises the differences we all carry, and at the same time, it reminds us that at the end of the day, our aspirations are all the same.”
— Abdulazeez Musa
He named the gaps that now sit at the centre of YouthXcel Africa’s work, discovery, direction, readiness, recognition, and reach, and described the organisation’s approach as building frameworks that respond to each one directly, rather than simply repeating that opportunity is scarce.
“We are building an end to end process that does not just help a young person discover an opportunity, but takes them through the entire process, from finding it to actually reaching it.”
— Abdulazeez Musa
A first look at the Pathfind
With the panel complete and audience questions underway, the session moved into its closing segment, a first look at the Pathfind, YouthXcel Africa’s platform for helping young people move from finding an opportunity to actually reaching it. A member of the YouthXcel Africa team, introduced on the call as Fatimat Ibrahim, walked participants through how it works, in 4 connected parts.
Pathfind Tool
The Circle came first, described as the home of the Pathfind, a daily community where young people, the team, and mentors think through opportunities together rather than alone.
“Navigating opportunities is often a lonely journey. With the Circle, it does not have to be. In our community, you will find your person, someone ready to listen, share ideas, and navigate opportunities with you.”
— Fatimat Ibrahim, Communication and Community Lead, YouthXcel Africa
From there she moved through the Weekly, the curated set of scholarships, fellowships, jobs, and grants shared with the community every week, the tool itself, which gives a young person an honest readiness score against a real opportunity along with practical next steps, and the monthly Sessions, where a guest speaker and a recent winner of a widely sought opportunity walk the community through exactly how it was done.
Abdulazeez then returned to close the segment with a live walkthrough of the Pathfind page itself, opening the tool on screen and inviting a participant to name a real opportunity they were working toward, so the room could watch the readiness check run in real time. He was candid that the platform is still in beta, built openly and improved in direct response to feedback from the community using it.
“We do not have everything figured out, and we are not here to pretend that we do. We are in the beta version, and we are building and iterating on it, with your feedback.”
— Abdulazeez Musa, Founder, YouthXcel Africa
What stays with us
By the time the session closed, a few threads had run through every speaker’s remarks, in different words but toward the same point. Self-awareness comes before strategy, know where you stand before you decide where to go. Volunteering, approached as a way to solve someone else’s problem rather than to ask for help, opens doors that applications alone rarely do. And documentation, the discipline of recording work while it is still small, is often what turns an ordinary application into a convincing one.
Different Contexts, Common Aspirations was never only a theme for the day. It described the room itself, close to 60 young people, from different countries, different circumstances, and different starting points, brought together by one shared reach toward opportunity. YouthXcel Africa is grateful to every speaker, to the moderator who held the day together, and to every young person who showed up, asked a question, and stayed to the end.
If today’s conversation spoke to you, the next step is simple. Join the Pathfind community, and start turning the opportunities in front of you into the ones you actually reach.
International Youth Day Discourse 2.0 Session