At Youth Competence Center, our projects are shaped by the needs of young people and rural communities, grounded in our mission to promote education and reduce rural poverty. These programme areas guide our work across communities in Nigeria and beyond. The following areas reflect both our values and our concrete actions.
Our Projects & Programmes
Education & Skills Training
YCC works to ensure every young person has access to quality education and vocational skills. From scholarship support to ICT training and vocational workshops, we equip young people with the tools they need for meaningful employment and lifelong learning.er with the partners from the Global South and Global North we examine structures, develope tools and guidelines, and advocate for equitable partnerships that centre communities’ needs rather than reproduce old hierarchies. By challenging dominant narratives and promoting inclusive frameworks, we work to make international volunteering more just and reflective of diverse experiences.
Sustainable Agriculture
Diversity and equality are at the heart of YCC’s vision. We strive to ensure that people of all backgrounds — whatever their culture, class, gender, identity, or ability — can participate fully and meaningfully. Projects and collaborations around the world reflect this priority. YCC aims to mainstream inclusivity in volunteering and intercultural education and to promote understanding across differences. In our work on gender equality, we work within and across generations for the creation of violence-free environments. It’s an invitation to change the rules of the abusive power structures embodied in our patriarchal societies and promote respect for diversity, interculturality, bodily autonomy and identity in any way, shape, or form that constitutes a person and makes them free and unique.
Micro-Credit & Economic Empowerment
Young people around the world are demanding urgent responses to the climate crisis, especially where environmental harm intersects with social injustice. YCC responds through projects such as LIVE-EX — Living Earth Exchange, an Erasmus+ funded virtual exchange bringing together youth from Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe to build digital skills, promote climate justice advocacy, and engage in intercultural action. This project empowers young people to understand climate colonialism, develop environmental awareness, and advocate for equitable solutions in their communities. It demonstrates how climate action and youth engagement can go hand in hand, building networks for sustainable impact.
Youth Empowerment & Sports
Intercultural learning is foundational to everything YCC does. Every short- and long-term volunteer exchange is designed as a space for deep cultural engagement, mutual learning, and meaningful dialogue. Through programmes that place volunteers in community projects and engage them in shared activities, young people learn to navigate differences, listen across cultures, and appreciate diverse worldviews. Projects like intercultural training seminars, collaborative youth workshops, and skills-sharing exchanges help volunteers connect personal experience to global realities and contribute to peace, respect and understanding in everyday life.
Across all these priorities, YCC is committed to collective action, deep learning, and shared responsibility. Young people are not passively involved — they shape our direction, influence our collaborations, and bring their lived experiences to bear on the world. By focusing on decolonisation, diversity and equality, climate justice, and intercultural learning, YCC supports youth to not only understand global issues, but to act for meaningful change.
Our partners
We work with the support of or in cooperation with:
