Youth Civil Activism Network (YouthCAN)

YouthCAN is the leading global youth network dedicated to countering extremism, polarisation, hate speech and disinformation.

The YouthCAN community unites over 1,900 young activists, creatives and tech entrepreneurs in more than 130 countries to amplify their efforts worldwide.

YouthCAN works to:

Empower youth through training and resources which enable them to act independently as leaders for change.

Increase the amount of effective youth-led and youth-focused content available to address extremist propaganda.

Elevate youth voices to policymakers in order to affect change and encourage stakeholders to involve youth in a meaningful way in policy development.

Provide insight to policy makers and other stakeholders to help ensure programmes and policies which affect youth are informed and relevant.

Connect young people across the globe with other activists and professionals working in other sectors who can support their activism.

The online YouthCAN network engages young people and provides them with the tools they need to create effective content aimed at challenging hate speech and extremism. Offline, our Youth Innovation Labs provide young activists with the resources and expertise to develop and deliver counter-speech campaigns for tackling issues affecting young people in their communities.

In 2017, YouthCAN partnered with another ISD project – the Strong Cities Network – to develop the Young Cities project, funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The project aims to connect young activists and youth leaders with local policy-makers and municipal authorities, deliver training to build their capacities to enact change together and establish a more permanent framework for dialogue.

The project is currently in its seventh phase: implementing its second Digital Youth Innovation Lab, this time in Lahore, Pakistan, while overcoming the challenges that COVID-19 has presented.

Diverse City Tours: a campaign to foster social cohesion in Islamabad

Participants of our Youth Innovation Lab, Islamabad 2019

A campaign to counter COVID-related misinformation reached more than 4 million people

Latest YouthCAN Resources

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ISD’s YouthCAN team

Moustafa Ayad

Executive Director for Africa, the Middle East and Asia (AMEA)

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Moustafa Ayad is Executive Director at ISD for Africa, the Middle East and Asia (AMEA). He is author of the ISD reports The Propaganda Pipeline: The ISIS Fuouaris Upload Network on Facebook, El Rubio’ Lives: The Challenge Of Arabic Language Extremist Content On Social Media Platforms, ‘The Baghdadi Net’: How A Network of ISIL-Supporting Accounts Spread Across Twitter, The Management of Terrorist Content: How Al Qaeda Texts Continue to Evade Facebook and YouTube Detection, and co-author of No Platform for Old Men, Barriers to Online Youth Civic Engagement and P-CVE in Europe.

Kelsey Bjornsgaard

Senior Manager, Campaigns & Capacity Building

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Kelsey Bjornsgaard is a Senior Manager at ISD, where she leads on counter-narrative development and delivery as well as youth engagement and education through the Youth Civil Activism Network (YouthCAN) and Young Cities programmes. Kelsey has developed strategies for enhancing peer-to-peer messaging, working closely with young activists internationally to develop innovative youth-led initiatives to prevent and counter violent extremism. Kelsey also has worked, through Young Cities, to amplify youth voices amongst government and policy-makers at a city level. She is the co-author of the ISD reports YouthCAN: The Many States of Activism and No Platform for Old Men, Barriers to Online Youth Civic Engagement and P-CVE in Europe. She holds a Masters in International Conflict Studies from King’s College London and a Bachelors in European Studies from the University of Oklahoma.

Jasmeet Sahotay

Project Coordinator

Jasmeet is a Project Coordinator at ISD, working on the YouthCAN and Young Cities projects. Jasmeet supports the delivery of the Youth Innovation Labs, manages the Communications for youth-related programming, and supports the development of new project activities and strategies. He is the lead author of the ISD report Voices of Pakistani Youth: Lessons for Civil Society in the Development of Effective Counter-Narrative Campaigns. He holds a Masters in International Law, Security and Terrorism from the University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy & Politics from the University of Leeds.

Sameen Zehra

YouthCAN Associate

Sameen is a Youth Civic Action Associate at ISD. She supports the delivery of ISD’s youth empowerment programmes, Young Cities and YouthCAN, assisting in developing online communications, campaigns, and supporting youth activists and their projects globally. Sameen holds an M.S. in Global Affairs with a Peacebuilding specialization from New York University, and a B.A. in Peace, Conflict, and Justice from the University of Toronto. Before joining ISD, she worked at the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) to develop strategic communications, digital advocacy campaigns, and coordinate a multimedia training program for local women-led peacebuilding organizations. As a graduate student, she was also a Consultant with the UN Counterterrorism Executive Directorate, and the Ugandan-based African Youth Initiative Network.