Youth volunteer programmes can create meaningful opportunities for participation, skills development and community action when young people have a real role in deciding what the programme does. They are much less useful when outside organisations arrive with a pre-designed project, treat local communities as recipients and measure success only by volunteer numbers.<\/p>\n
For low-income communities in the Middle East and North Africa, effective design needs to connect youth participation with local needs, safeguarding, access, practical skills and pathways into education or work where that is part of the programme objective.<\/p>\n
UNICEF’s guidance on adolescent development and participation in MENA emphasises structured capacity development, opportunities for young people to use their skills in valued activities, and sustained mentoring relationships with peers and adults.<\/p>\n
Source: UNICEF MENA, Adolescent Development and Participation<\/a><\/p>\n Before designing activities, ask:<\/p>\n The IASC Guidelines for Working With and For Young People in Humanitarian and Protracted Crises, supported by UNICEF and partners, frame youth engagement around five areas: services, participation, capacity, resources and data.<\/p>\n Source: UNICEF MENA, Guidelines for Working With and For Young People<\/a><\/p>\n A volunteer programme should therefore create more than tasks. Young people can help:<\/p>\n Local youth groups, schools, municipalities, civil-society organisations, community centres and employers often understand barriers that an external organisation will miss.<\/p>\n Partnership should clarify:<\/p>\n Do not describe an organisation as a MATSH partner or a programme as MATSH-delivered unless that relationship is documented.<\/p>\n Youth volunteering can support skills development when participants have real responsibilities. Depending on the programme, this can include:<\/p>\n UNV’s International Volunteer Year 2026 work in the Arab States includes resources specifically focused on measuring youth skills developed through volunteering.<\/p>\n Source: United Nations Volunteers, Arab States Volunteerism Knowledge Portal<\/a><\/p>\n Volunteer experience can help a young person demonstrate skills, but volunteering should not be marketed as a guaranteed route to employment.<\/p>\n The ILO’s 2026 youth-employment work in the Southern Mediterranean emphasises coordinated outreach, personalised guidance, skills development and employer engagement for young people facing barriers to employment.<\/p>\n Source: ILO, Southern Mediterranean youth pathways to employment, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n If employment is a programme objective, build an explicit pathway such as:<\/p>\n UNICEF identifies positive and sustained mentoring relationships as one of the important factors in positive youth development. Mentors can help young volunteers reflect, solve problems and connect experience with future opportunities.<\/p>\n A mentoring structure should define:<\/p>\n International volunteering can be appropriate in some contexts, but the needs of visiting volunteers should not drive programme design. Short placements can create disruption if local staff spend substantial time orienting visitors who leave before becoming useful.<\/p>\n Before adding international volunteers, ask:<\/p>\n Youth programmes may involve minors, vulnerable participants, travel, digital communication or one-to-one mentoring. Safeguarding should therefore cover:<\/p>\n Low-income youth may be unable to participate in an unpaid programme even when they want to. Participation costs can include transport, meals, mobile data, childcare or lost paid work.<\/p>\n Where resources allow, programme design can consider:<\/p>\n The objective is to prevent \u201cvolunteering\u201d from becoming an opportunity available only to young people who can afford to participate for free.<\/p>\n UNICEF’s 2025 Lebanon report, Young People Leading in Crisis<\/em>, describes structured opportunities for young people to participate in emergency response and community resilience rather than treating them only as beneficiaries.<\/p>\n\n
Meaningful participation requires influence<\/h2>\n
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Build participation around local organisations<\/h2>\n
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Volunteer activity should build useful capability<\/h2>\n
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Connect volunteering to employment only when the pathway is real<\/h2>\n
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Use mentoring deliberately<\/h2>\n
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Do not make international volunteers the centre of the programme<\/h2>\n
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Design safeguarding from the beginning<\/h2>\n
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Reduce access barriers<\/h2>\n
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Community action can be especially important in crisis settings<\/h2>\n