Youth strategies from informal settlements: Hub for Housing Justice convenes online and in-person youth exchanges
"[They say] I should wait for my time. In my thirties? So, when exactly is that time they expect us to wait for?", a young leader from Nigeria asks to the camera as he explains the different ways in which he is engaged in his neighbourhood to mobilise for better living conditions and claim the housing rights of his community.
The scene is part of a series of videos produced by young people from informal settlements across Africa and Asia to collectively reflect on their strategies to claim housing rights and shape urban governance in their cities. Throughout 2025, as part of the YCIV project (led by University of Sheffield, the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights and IIED), the Hub for Housing Justice convened various online exchanges to learn from diverse challenges and strategies used to strengthen the engagement of diverse youth in urban processes, using video-making as a means to capture and share the complexities of local processes.
Stories of youth-led activism for better cities
The exchanges brought together young people from Benin, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, the Philippines, Uganda, and Zambia, in a learning opportunity brought about by the project “Neighbourhoods fit for diverse young people: civic media practices and urban claims-making in Nepal and India" (YCIV). The youth groups were invited to participate through the partners of the Hub for Housing Justice, including members of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) as well as Slum Dwellers International (SDI). Throughout the exchanges, participants developed a series of videos that explored two main questions: how is youth represented or excluded from urban processes in your city? And what strategies have you used to engage and empower diverse youth, change narratives, and bring about change?
The exchanges and resulting videos demonstrated that young people are actively engaged to challenge housing injustices, improve living conditions in their communities, and build more inclusive societies. From collecting data, to mobilising fellow young people through social media, to using storytelling to reshape narratives around youth, the work of young leaders plays a critical role in addressing current and future challenges in urban areas. Recognising their contributions and engaging them as key urban stakeholders is essential to transform our cities.
Young activists at the World Urban Forum
In May 2026, eleven young activists attended the 13th World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku, Azerbaijan, to share their work and engage with other activists, urban practitioners and policy-makers on how youth movements are mobilising to advance housing justice, including through the use of community-led digital tools and practices.
Reflecting on WUF13, Aishwarya Gupta, a young woman working in Bhuj, India, with the organisation Hunnarshala and part of the YCIV project, explained, "We're meeting groups from different countries and different journeys. What has been really meaningful is to understand each other's cities, context, the various challenges, and the similarities that we're all facing together. We're all taking back the power of media and storytelling and the importance of being together."