Mireille Sekamana on what global development gets wrong about young people
When I think back to the decision that changed the trajectory of life, it wasn’t a grand, cinematic moment.
It was a small, almost hesitant, "yes" when I hit submit on an application for a summer internship at YLabs, sneaking in a few hours before the deadline.
I was 20 years old, still a college student, balancing classes and part-time work, unsure whether it was even worth trying–or if I even had the time. But what pulled me in was a stubborn thought I couldn't shake: maybe this is a way to work on something that matters to me.
I had recently been exploring a tech idea to help young people access sexual and reproductive health information, a concept not far from what CyberRwanda would one day become.
Something told me this internship was an invitation into something bigger.
I just didn’t know yet how big.
The first time I felt taken seriously
In the beginning, the discomfort was real. I remember the first days of my internship clearly, sitting quietly in rooms where terms like “prototype testing” and “Human-Centered Design” flew over my head.
Everyone else seemed experienced, confident, and speaking a language I had never heard before. It would have been easy, almost expected, that I, the intern, would be relegated to the sidelines to protect the real work from my inexperience.
But that’s not what happened.
Instead, I was given responsibilities immediately. I was asked not just to observe, but to participate, to lead interviews, to offer feedback, to question designs, to contribute ideas. I was given trust before I felt ready, certainly before I felt like I had earned it.
That trust shaped my professional growth more than any degree or formal training could have. It stretched me beyond the cautious, hesitant student I was, and glimpse a version of myself that could eventually sit at the table not as a guest, but as a co-pilot.
It also taught me something deeper that I carry forward every day in my own leadership: that true youth engagement is not about bringing young people into the room to validate decisions already made. It’s about giving them real agency, real stakes, and ownership from the very beginning.
Before YLabs, I had participated in projects where “youth engagement” existed largely on paper. Being young made you lucrative for photos ops and conference panels, but rarely did you have any actual influence. You were invited because you were young, not because your ideas were needed. Consulted politely and ignored quietly. Even when you spoke, you could sense the walls around what your voice could touch.
True engagement builds futures, not just projects
At YLabs, for the first time, I saw an organization where youth feedback didn’t end at documentation. It flowed back into what was being built. When young people pointed out something confusing, the design shifted. When their experiences revealed gaps, the strategies adjusted. Their contributions weren’t absorbed for appearances, but instead, they reshaped outcomes. That difference showed me that youth engagement, when done right, is much more than strategy. When done right, it is an entirely new way of doing things.
I often think about how those early days at YLabs and lessons learned still define the way I lead projects today.
Too often, youth engagement is framed around numbers: how many young people attended the workshop, how many were consulted during a survey, or how many used a health platform.
But the true measure of youth engagement is not participation rates – it’s in power redistribution.
It's in whether young people have the tools, the confidence, and the influence to leave their mark not only on the project at hand, but on the systems beyond it.
Engagement must go deeper than simply inviting young people to contribute. It must be transformative for them. They must leave stronger than they came. They must walk away having built skills, expanded networks, and grown in confidence. If not, we’ve failed them at best–tokenized them at worst.
That understanding shapes how I design programs now. When we involve young people in our work, I ask myself:
Are we involving them to extract their knowledge or to expand their futures?
Are they simply providing validation, or are they actively shaping the journey?
Would my younger self feel seen and be proud of what we’re doing here?
Because I have seen what happens when projects lack youth ownership. Ideas fade. Initiatives unravel.
It is not enough to build things for young people. They must feel they own the ideas. They must see themselves as stewards, not subjects.
Youth don’t need to wait their turn
Sometimes the impact is immediate. Like a young person seeing their suggestion woven into the final product. Sometimes it is quieter, slower, showing up years later in how they advocate, how they organize, how they shape their own communities.
And sometimes the greatest transformations are the ones that happen inside, quietly within, that end up shifting your fundamental view of the world and how you operate within it.
Soon after I joined YLabs, I experienced one myself.
During a testing session, I realized that the feedback I was gathering from young people wasn’t just being recorded and filed away. It was actively shaping the product, steering it, redefining it.
But more importantly, something shifted in me.
For the first time, I saw that my work wasn’t peripheral.
It had weight. Influence.
That realization unlocked a belief that I could shape the systems themselves, rather than just operate within them.
Ask any young person you meet if they feel like their ideas are valued, heard, and respected.
I’d bet a lot of them would say no. But that belief alone in young people, and when they are trusted fully, can do far more than anyone expects, including themselves.
It is a belief I carry into every project I lead now.
A lasting thought
If I could speak to my younger self today — the one who hesitated to apply, who feared she wasn’t ready — I would say simply: step forward anyway.
Readiness is not a requirement for growth. Sometimes you move first, and the readiness catches up (much) later.
And if I could send one message to every organization working with youth, it would be this: engagement is not simply doing youth a favor. It’s building better futures not for them, but alongside them. The future we claim to care about cannot be designed without the people who will inherit it.
Meaningful youth engagement is not fast. It is not always easy. It demands patience, humility, and a willingness to share real power.
But if you do it right, you create better projects. You create better leaders. You create new architects for the future. You create change that lives beyond the funding cycles and grant charts.
You create the world you say you believe in.
I know this, because I am one of the young people who was trusted early, invested in deeply, and transformed by the simple, radical act of being seen as capable, even before I fully knew it myself.
And today, it is both my privilege and my responsibility to pass that trust forward.
Ready to partner with us to help youth lead the way? Reach out to our team today!
