Nairobi, Kenya | 12 August 2026

International Youth Day, observed annually on 12 August, provides an opportunity to recognize the contributions of young people while drawing attention to the opportunities and challenges shaping their lives. It is the day the world celebrates more than 1.2 billion young people, not as statistics but active community, who, together, are a treasure house.

International Youth Day 2026, under the United Nations theme “Different Contexts, Common Aspirations,” rightly captures how diverse contexts present young people with both challenges and opportunities. These challenges are shaped by their social, technological, cultural, economic, and geographical environments and include limited access to education, unemployment, climate change, digital inclusion, inadequate social support systems, the rise of artificial intelligence, instability, and concerns around mental well-being, among others.

Yet, despite these differences, young people share common aspirations: to live with dignity and access meaningful opportunities. These aspirations motivate them to respond with remarkable vitality, creativity, and resilience. Young people are imagining, creating, questioning, and leading change in their communities, demonstrating that while their contexts may differ, their hopes for a better future remain deeply connected.

In Africa particularly, growing youth population presents a formidable potential for social and economic transformation for the young people and entire African community. However, various interconnected challenges such as access to quality education, health care, decent employment opportunities, relevant skills, etc, remain barriers for building sustainable systems. In this specific context, we hear the young people asking us to listen deeply, trust them with resources, and create structures that allow their energy and talents to create lasting change.

As the world marks this day, the African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN) joins the global community in celebrating young people and reaffirming its commitment to walking with them as partners, innovators, and leaders of change.

In attending to the aspirations of the young people. I wish to highlight two important points;

1.Called to Listen

What do young people say to us?

• They are courageous, creative, and immensely talented, with the potential to lead meaningful change when provided with the right mentorship and guidance.
• They want to be heard, trusted, supported, and given access to real resources and opportunities that enable them to thrive.
• They often understand the digital world shaping their lives better than many of their leaders and institutions.
• They are ready not only to learn and grow but also to share their digital skills, knowledge, and experiences with others.
• Job creation and employment opportunities that align with their education, training, and skills remain among their top priorities.
• Young people are a valuable asset: they bring energy, creativity, innovation, and fresh perspectives. As one of the largest and fastest-growing demographic groups, their potential can be harnessed in transformative ways for communities and societies.

The young people are not waiting to be saved. They are already active; they are self-aware, dreaming, and building despite experiencing extraordinary obstacles.

They are organizing, developing solutions, advocating for their communities and volunteering and responding to challenges around them.

They are inviting us to walk with them to co-create a better world where they can thrive.

AJAN understands that listening to young people is not just speaking about them. In fact, our third Universal Apostolic Preference “to accompany young people in the creation of a hope-filled future,” insists that walking and listening to the young people is a commitment that goes beyond programes designed for the youth. It is an intentional effort to create spaces where young people recognize their strengths, participate meaningfully, share their lived experiences, shape the responses that influence good decisions, in order to create pathways through which they can become agents of positive transformation.

AJAN’s work has consistently sought to contribute to this transformation by supporting young people to move from vulnerability towards greater self-reliance, responsible leadership, and meaningful participation in their communities (read more about Jesuit Youth Social Entrepreneurship Action-JYSEA and AJAN HIV and AIDS Prevention Programme for the Youth (AHAPPY)). We believe that with necessary mentorship, disposition, resources, skills set and integral development the young people have the capacity to transform challenges in their environment into opportunities for innovation and sustainable solutions thus becoming catalyst for the changes they wish to bring in their communities.

2. A Call to Courage

The young people are called to see themselves, not as victims but as agents and architects of the solutions that the world desperately needs. They are called to rise above the hopelessness that may seem to engulf them. Pope Leo XIV, while attending the2026 Franciscan Youth Meeting, reminded the young people that “we are here to overcome resignation and fear, to untangle the doubts that hold us back just as they held back the apostles. Recalling that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7), the young people are invited to step into their space, not as guests waiting for an invitation to approach the table, but as citizens of the world, who carry both responsibility and accountability.

The act of weaving a hope-filled future where the aspirations of the young people matter, calls for the young people to be attentive to the present, interpret it, so that “we may write new pages of history.” Pope Leo XIV,2026). The future is not something we simply wait for, rather, it is something we build together. Here is an invitation to look beyond the differences that separate young people and recognize the hopes that unite them.

On this International Youth Day, AJAN celebrates these aspirations and the young people who not only carry them but actively create it. More importantly, AJAN renews its commitment to walking with young people, listening to their voices, investing in their potential, and creating spaces where they can lead.

Happy International Youth Day 2026!

By, Ms. Pascalia Sergon,

AJAN Acting Director.