General
Citizens for Change is a design and research agency that harnesses the energy and wisdom of young people to solve the world’s wicked problems. Via three innovative services and solutions, we help organisations to:
- Demonstrate and quantify the impact they create
- Unlock new opportunities through co-creation
- Drive systemic change
- Foster inclusive, empowered communities
- Enhance their credibility
We partner with
- Funders and agencies focused on youth empowerment
- Researchers and organizations striving to meaningfully engage young people in their work
- Young social innovators
Contact us to find out if we are a good fit.
We combine innovative solutions with evidence-based methods to help you:
- Demonstrate the measurable social and financial returns that your programmes generate for society
- Develop tailored approaches for youth engagement and inclusion
- Build sustainable programmes that amplify the lived experience of young people
Young people are central to our work. Guided by our core values of equity, collaboration, and boldness, we partner with others to challenge power dynamics, amplify youth voices, and support meaningful change. Some of the ways in which we live our values include:
- Actively listening to and prioritising the perspectives of young people
- Fostering trust and mutual respect within our team, with our partners, and with the young people we work with
- Embracing curiosity and questioning the status quo to challenge the barriers to youth agency
- Actively recruiting young people, providing mentorship and opportunities to grow their skills and leadership capacities
In early 2025 we will be establishing a Youth Advisory Committee to ensure that young people are meaningfully engaged in shaping our strategy and programmes.
We are committed to advancing the following Sustainable Development Goals:
- SDG 3: Good Health and Wellbeing
- SDG 4: Quality Education
- SDG 5: Gender Equality
- SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
- SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
- SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Working With Citizen for Change
Youth Impact enables organisations to design tools that rigorously measure and showcase the transformative outcomes of investing in young people, so you can better amplify your impact. Learn more about Youth Impact, or contact us to find out what outcomes Youth Impact can create for your organisation.
Youth Impact uses a combination of outcome harvesting, causal mapping, and rigorous social value measurement tools like Social Return on Investment (SROI) analyses to showcase the transformative potential of youth-focused programmes.
Youth Solutions supports young people to identify the issue that they want to address in their school and/or community, and develop solutions - or prototypes - that enable these spaces to be safer and more inclusive. It does so via an innovative process that facilitates young people to transform their ideas for change into action; build the skills needed to facilitate and document this change (i.e. using PhotoVoice )collaboratively ideate initial prototypes; and develop metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of these prototypes. Championing young people as the drivers of change ensures their solutions are relevant, meaningful and sustainable.
Youth Impact enables organisations to quantify the outcomes of their youth-focused initiatives, using methods that go beyond simple activity metrics to showcase real systemic change, enhancing credibility and unlocking new funding opportunities. As part of this service, we collaborate with our partners to disseminate evidence of the transformative potential of their youth-focused initiatives. Whilst this is bespoke to our partners’ needs, this can include developing social media collateral; documenting project processes and materials; creating dossiers of student case studies and testimonials; producing student-led photo stories about their experiences of change; and, building interactive data dashboards to monitor project outcomes in real-time.
Investing in young people has the power to drive truly meaningful change. We know this because we have had the privilege of supporting some incredible organizations to better amplify the outcomes of their work with and for young people. For instance, our analysis exploring the impact created by Femina Hip, Tanzania's largest civil society multimedia platform dedicated to fostering young changemakers, found that, for every $1 invested, $23 of social value is created. A similar analysis of Aga Khan Foundation’s Values-Based Education programme found that investing in the personal and professional development of teachers generates a social value of 16:1; demonstrating a significant impact on individual teachers, their young learners, and the broader community.
We know that flipping deeply entrenched power dynamics - such as adultism - on their head is no easy feat but, true to our value of boldness, we are determined to challenge this injustice. One of the ways we address this challenge in our research and design processes is via Gaventa's Powercube framework , which enables us to shed light on the different ways in which power can be expressed and experienced. Power takes the form of
- Power over = the control or domination of one person or group over others
- Power within = the sense of self-awareness and self-knowledge required to exercise agency
- Power with = the collective power that arises from acting jointly
Using this framework enables us to gain a more nuanced understanding of how power maintains harmful dynamics and how we can challenge them to create safer and more inclusive societies.
Process And Collaboration
Although our services and solutions can be tailored to the needs of our partners, our processes typically involve:
- Pre-Production: clarifying with the client what they want to achieve and co-creating a participatory research design
- Production: group facilitation, data collection and analysis
- Post-Production: writing, closing the feedback loop to share findings with the client and participants, facilitation of organisational learning
processes, and packaging and disseminating evidence
Get in touch to discuss what partnering could look like for you.
Timelines depend on the scope of work; we have conducted projects ranging from anywhere between 3 months to 2 years. Reach out to tell us about your needs, and we will be able to give you an estimated timeline.
Whilst we have a strong track record in East Africa, our services and solutions are globally applicable. Our Majority-to-Minority learning model prioritises insights and innovations from the Majority World, flipping traditional knowledge transfer dynamics. This exchange enables us to co-create contextually relevant solutions that address global challenges through diverse perspectives.
You can view our track record here.
We offer our partners cost-effective, scalable solutions tailored to their needs, making them accessible for small organisations. Get in touch to discuss what we can offer you.
Customised Services
Yes, we offer tailored support. Contact us to tell us about your unique organisational needs.
Yes, we offer youth-focused organisations bespoke development opportunities aiming to foster healthy learning organisations that put their values into action. Get in touch to find out more.
Yes! Mobilising young people as drivers of systemic change is central to our work. One of the ways we do this is by building the capacity of youth-focused researchers and organisations to foster emancipatory research with and for young people.