Youth Lead: Youth Change (YLYC) is a program that aims to build a sense of resilience and belonging in young refugees by equipping them with useful skills to adapt to different environments and life settings, with the long term goal to develop the next generation of leaders who come from displacement backgrounds. The program is designed to provide participants with the essential knowledge and skills that can help them further their learning even in a constrained situation, to engage with their community, and to prepare for life after resettlement. The program is also designed to provide a space for participants to have the opportunity to work on their ideas, build their facilitation and leadership skills, and test their ideas in a real life setting. YLYC is a continuation of the 3-year youth mentorship programme for displaced youth led by one of JTI founders 
 

The main program of YLYC consists of two modules that will run concurrently (Personal Resilience and Structured Learning) and delivered in different formats throughout 6 months. The main program focuses on planting the seed of change into the participant mindset and behavior in incremental steps. The program is also a way to utilize education albeit informally to improve the mental wellbeing of young people in the hope that it can help in maintaining the interest and motivation of youth refugees to continue pursuing learning and personal capacity building while waiting for the result of their resettlement process that can take years to complete. 
 

YLYC also includes the Community Program, which is a practical and impactful mini project that participants will develop and implement in their location and community of choice for 6-8 weeks. It is intended to provide participants with an opportunity to test their ideas of change in a real life setting. Participants work in groups, with each group design and plan for their own mini project as part of the Main Program, supported by two changemaker workshops and a reflection workshop (see table above) to help participants in the ideation, execution, and reflection/evaluation of their mini projects. Each group then engages directly with their group/community of choice to implement their ideas. The projects is simple and involve a small number of people, hence called mini projects, but is clear on the idea of change they want to see in their community and the expected impact. 
 

YLYC is organized and delivered by Emplace Youth Initiative in 2025. Just Transition Indonesia co-led the YLYC Structured Learning Module with Design Ethnography Lab, Institut Teknologi Bandung.