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Showcase your Research & Advocacy skills: Restless Development is recruiting for Remote based Youth Led Researchers!

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Closing Date: 7 February 2025

Showcase your Research & Advocacy skills: Restless Development is recruiting for Remote based Youth Led Researchers!

About Restless Development

Restless Development is a global non profit agency. Restless Development support the collective power of young leaders to create a better world. Restless Development is independently registered and governed in nine countries (India, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, UK, USA, Zambia and Zimbabwe) bound together by its vision for youth power. Restless Development run youth-led programmes to tackle the issues that young people care about the most. Restless Development also run the Youth Collective – a growing network of over 4000 local youth civil society groups and organisations in 185 countries. Restless Development is committed to creating an agency that walks the talk on power shifting, using the Power shifting checklist, both internally and externally.

Background

This youth-led initiative is part of the AU-EU Youth Action Lab, a collaborative program funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented in partnership with Oxfam Novib (lead applicant), Restless Development, Oxfam in Africa, and the European Youth Forum. The program focuses on empowering young people in Africa and Europe by supporting their participation in co-creating and implementing innovative initiatives. Through the AU-EU Youth Action Lab, the project aims to foster youth engagement, bridge gaps across continents, and amplify marginalised voices through grants and digital platforms designed for and with activists.

About the Research

This youth-led research aims to document the experiences, challenges, and best practices of youth-led initiatives, with young people at the forefront of defining what success looks like and how it should be measured. By investing in dedicated thematic research on youth empowerment and inclusion, the study will gather critical insights into the needs and obstacles facing young Africans. An independent cohort of Youth Led Researchers or youth researchers will receive comprehensive training on Restless Development’s six-step youth-led research methodology—covering ethics and safeguarding, data collection, data management, and transcription—ensuring that data is collected rigorously and ethically.

Through this approach, Youth Led Researchers will play a pivotal role in shaping the learning agenda and evaluating results, ultimately generating evidence that can inform advocacy, drive intergenerational dialogue, and influence policy at both regional and cross-continental levels.

About the role:

Are you a young person aged 15 to 34 who is active in a community group, social movement, or civil society organisation? Restless Development want to work with you! Restless Development is recruiting 24 community-based young researchers (2 per country) from 12 African countries. For this specific youth-led participatory research project, Restless Development is focusing on recruiting young researchers from five countries—Senegal, Tunisia, Mozambique, Somalia, and Ethiopia—for a 10-month engagement.

Where: You should be based in any of the 5 countries
Duration: 10 months (February– November 2025)
Stipend: EUR 75.00 / per month

Responsibilities

As a Young Researcher, you will:

Attend a five-day foundation workshop in February 2025 on Restless Development’s youth-led research methodology, covering ethics, safeguarding, data collection, data management, and transcription.
Collaborate with fellow researchers and technical teams to create data collection tools reflecting youth-led experiences and best practices on youth resourcing, unemployment and inclusion.
Engage key respondents (in person and online) across diverse youth groups and grantees, ensuring broad participation.
Collect data in line with targets, contributing to a deeper understanding of youth empowerment and inclusion.
Interpret findings in a participatory workshop, then validate them in selected communities.
Provide feedback on the final report and use the insights for advocacy, discussions, and intergenerational dialogues.
Promote the findings within networks, grantee exchanges and during the link and learn sessions, driving meaningful change at local, national, and continental levels.

About You

Restless Development is looking for young researchers who meet the following criteria:

Age: 15-34 years old.
Location: You must be based in any of the 5 listed African countries (Tunisia, Senegal, Mozambique, Somalia, and Ethiopia)
Education: Have completed secondary school.
Language: Comfortable communicating in English.
Experience: Active within civil society spaces—youth activism, community engagement, social movements, or similar—and/or demonstrating community leadership.

Expected Outcomes

By placing youth at the forefront of knowledge production, this research will:

Capture Youth Experiences and Best Practices: Document the achievements, challenges, and strategies of youth-led initiatives to generate evidence for more impactful engagement.
Influence Advocacy and Learning: Equip young people to shape research priorities, evaluate results, and drive advocacy aligned with their needs at local and continental levels.
Foster Intergenerational Dialogue and Policy Impact: Provide robust data to bridge gaps between youth, policymakers, and stakeholders, shaping more responsive policies and programs.