The messy, beautiful rise of Africa’s youth

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OPINION

By Samuel Ssempala

As we celebrate International Youth Day 2025, my mind goes to the young men and women whose hands are rough from work, whose clothes carry the scent of soil and sun, whose eyes hold the kind of determination that can’t be forged.

This year’s theme, “Local Youth Actions for the SDGs and Beyond”, isn’t just a slogan for us at ForAfrika but at the heart of our everyday work. For us, this slogan is in the villages where the morning starts with the low hum of a tractor, in markets where voices rise over the smell of ripe mangoes and in refugee camps where small shops cling to the hope of a better tomorrow.

I think of one morning in Uganda’s Obongi District where a 23-year-old farmer is at work, driving a tractor across the fields. He’s part of a cooperative that, through our partnership with the World Food Programme and the Mastercard Foundation, now has access to mechanisation, training, and markets. For him, this means farming is no longer just about survival but more about generating income, creating jobs, and building a future.

I’ve seen the same spirit across Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. It’s a development that whispers of a quiet defiance amongst its youth. It’s young people looking at poverty, displacement, and climate change in the eye and saying: We are still here. We will not be forgotten.

In Rwanda, young women have turned stacks of handwritten savings records into something sharp and precise. Through the amatsinda.rw, a digital platform they helped shape, savings groups now manage tens of thousands of dollars with dignity and clarity. The result? Poultry farms, agro-input shops, irrigation businesses, and boda bodas delivering fresh produce. One group alone helped three women open tailoring shops, each employing two more. These are families fed, children in school, and communities slowly stitching themselves back together.

In South Sudan, where the land has felt more conflict than cultivation, green gardens now stand as proof that healing is possible. Rows of okra and eggplant bring food, income, and pride. Something that I have come to see as survival turned into unyielding strength.

And in Ethiopia’s drought-scarred Konso region, where the earth seemed to have given up, young farmers refused to. People like Kuchasa took climate-resilient seeds, basic tools, and solar-powered irrigation and brought the land back to life. She now harvests kale, carrots, and onions enough to feed her family and sell the rest, earning $60–$75 a week. Her courage inspired eleven others. Together, they’ve restored over sixty acres and planted twelve drought-tolerant vegetables. The real change, though, is in their minds. They’re no longer waiting for rescue but leading the recovery and teaching others how.

These are turning points where dependency is giving way to confidence. Markets are growing from the ground up and through it all, ForAfrika is not charging in to take over but walks beside them, listening, investing and most of all, believing.

Running through all of this is our Social Enterprise work, which really is the lifeline of what we do. This includes: guaranteed markets so farmers can plant without fear, access to finance so good ideas don’t die for lack of capital, training that builds on local knowledge and digital tools that make transactions clear and fair.

I also think of Joyce, a refugee mother from South Sudan, now running her own business in Imvepi camp in Uganda. She started with a garden, then joined a savings group. With small loans, she built something steady enough to send her children to school. Now she mentors others.

I believe this is how the Sustainable Development Goals are advanced; not only in air-conditioned conference halls, but under mango trees, in open-air markets, and in fields where work is done shoulder to shoulder.

This is what International Youth Day should feel like: real young people, deeply rooted and steadily rising.

So, if you’re reading this in an office in a city, in a small-town shop, or anywhere in between, here’s my ask: don’t just celebrate youth today. Invest in them, back their ideas and clear their paths. At ForAfrika, we know what the world is still learning: local youth are not “the future” but are the “now”. They are why communities recover faster, why markets stand stronger, why hope doesn’t flicker out.

And if you ever find yourself in Koboko in Uganda, Kamonyi in Rwanda, Aweil East in South Sudan, or Konso in Ethiopia, go. Step onto the soil and listen to the voices. Lean in.

Africa’s youth aren’t waiting for the world to save them. They’re already saving each other. And they are not done yet.

The writer is the Senior Director - Business Development East & Southern Africa at ForAfrika