New Global Partnership with Fondation Botnar
GOYN is delighted to announce the launch of a major global partnership with Fondation Botnar, a Swiss philanthropic foundation, rooted in a shared commitment to place-based investment that improves the wellbeing of young people living in cities around the world. This new collaboration aligns with Fondation Botnar’s signature OurCity initiative, which supports selected cities around the world to implement coordinated programs that leverage digital technologies and transform into youth-centered places. This three-year investment will enable GOYN to inaugurate three new communities, establishing a collaborative infrastructure and developing economic pathways. This new partnership will build on existing OurCity work in Tanga, Tanzania and Barranquilla, Colombia, as well as launch a new community in Bhubaneswar, India.
Fondation Botnar’s collaboration will extend GOYN’s global footprint from nine to 12 communities – including establishing a GOYN presence in Tanzania, which brings the network total to eight countries, joining Brazil, Colombia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Senegal, and South Africa. In the process, GOYN will test and evolve a peer-based approach to growing the network, with current Anchor Partners Swahilipot Hub Foundation in Mombasa, Kenya; Fundación Corona in Bogotá, Colombia; and Lighthouse Communities Foundation in Pune, India offering local peer-to-peer support in onboarding and guiding these three new network members.
This substantial commitment also will enable GOYN to further build out its global learning and capacity building for place-based systems change through efforts such as the GOYN Learning Lab, a comprehensive and dynamic suite of tools, methods, and training to guide community start-up and evolution. In parallel, with youth voice at the core of GOYN’s work, this partnership will allow GOYN to further invest in resources and capacity strengthening to mobilize youth-led civic engagement, innovation, and advocacy.
Fondation Botnar’s emergence as one of GOYN’s most significant partners is ideally timed to support this exciting moment in GOYN’s journey, as the network charts its course toward a new phase of community expansion and increasing impact. Together, GOYN and Fondation Botnar will generate valuable learning in ways to grow the network cost-effectively, open up high-potential economic pathways, and build more inclusive city systems – all while fueling transformational change through local-level action created with, by, and for young people.
