The Global Shapers Community - Davao Hub has partnered with organizations (USAID, The Asia Foundation, and Active Vista) to lead and host the first Davao Local Youth Assembly. The project was created for and by the youth, so that it could potentially spark their continuous engagement in different socio-cultural activities that brings meaningful and impactful change to their communities. This project gives the youth a platform to exercise their participation in democratic engagement will also allow them to practice or use their skills in leadership, critical-thinking, and co-creating. Since the project is forward-looking, the group of youth leaders that were gathered for this project had their own primary community that will continuous inspire them to work together for bettering themselves and their society.

The project aims to strengthen youth participation in governance through capacity building of youth leaders, to support youth leaders to develop formidable networks around priority issues, and to enhance civic education to drive youth participation in democratic governance. The two-day youth assemblies features inputs from relevant speakers and break out sessions for the youth to process the inputs given. At the end of each assembly, the youth shall come up with action points that they shall implement. Each Youth Assembly shall gather at least sixty (60) youth advocates in each area. It will select around 20 youth leaders to form a steering body that will develop the agenda and action points drafted and to provide strategic direction to the network. Regular quarterly meetings shall be held among youth participants to plan and to implement activities based on the action points identified.

The impact we are aiming to achieve is to empower the youth to engage in democratic governance by providing them a platform where they can discuss, determine, and co-create actions on key issues affecting their own sector and localities. Through the Davao Local Youth Assembly, the youth participants have the liberty to prioritize agenda issues that they think are the most pressing in their context. The outputs of their discussions will also feed into a National Youth Agenda that has been started by a coalition of different youth organizations since 2018. Depending on the decision and discussion of the steering committee and youth participants, the output of the Local Youth Assembly can also be a Local Youth Agenda which can serve as a roadmap for future activities of different organizations that will be involved or the Local Government Units themselves.

Project Impact

• The assembly was a 2-day activity held on Sept. 11, 2021 & Sept. 12, 2021. Thereafter, quarterly meetings of the youth participants with the guidance of the steering committee were held to review implementation of action points.


• There were 280 participants, 5 local youth organizations, and 20 member of the steering/organizing committee (including speakers and performers) that attended the 2-day activity, yielding a total of about 300+ participants


• There were two resource speakers and breakout sessions conducted during the duration of the assemblies.


• There were two resource speakers — Mr. Mags Z. Maglana (Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Consultant) & Hon. Leni Robredo (Former Vice-President, Republic of the Philippines). There was also a guest performer — Mr. Joey Ayala (Former Chairman, National Commission for Culture and Arts — Music Committee)