By Divine Raphael, Member of The Co-Design and Planning Group for the September 2026 #iwill Learning & Legacy Event
Youth voice isn’t just about young people being heard. It’s about what happens because they were heard.
To me, that was the highlight of the September 2026 #iwill Learning and Legacy event that took place in London. It was exciting to be involved in sharing the impact of the #iwill fund in a room full of funders, commissioners, government and delivery organisations with not just an interest in youth social action, but also the power to do something about it.
Throughout the day, we used the idea of a garden and a dragon fruit to explore what youth social action needs to flourish. A dragon fruit doesn’t naturally grow in the UK because the conditions aren’t right. So, what would need to change for it to grow here?
For me, the same question can be asked about youth voice. What conditions do we need to create for young people to not just participate, but genuinely influence the things that affect them?
From the very beginning, a co-design team of young people, including myself, was involved in shaping the event. We helped choose the key themes, think about what we wanted people to take away and consider how we wanted them to feel when they left. We were fully in the steering seat for this event, and it felt empowering to be taken so seriously and given the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to something. We were offered the choice to get involved as much or as little as we felt comfortable with and were supported throughout.
It didn’t just stop there. We were able to not only plan, but also be present at the event and help facilitate throughout the day. I personally helped with registering people, leading the icebreaker and facilitating one of the workshop themes. Being involved in this way made me feel valued in the space. There was no sense of inferiority, which I’ve often experienced at events like this. And in my opinion, it only makes sense that young people should be involved in planning and facilitating events which are centred around talking about them.
For me, this was a great example of youth participation done well, and I think it echoes a lot of the conversations had throughout the day. But it goes further than this. I mentioned earlier that youth voice is about what happens because young people are heard. It is. But it’s also about how we are heard. And what “being heard” looks like in practice.
There is a big difference between collaboration and consultation. Too often, youth participation can lean towards the latter, with events or initiatives being youth-approved rather than actually youth-led. This needs to change. Youth empowerment calls for a shift away from the culture of tokenistic youth participation and towards the belief that involving young people throughout every step of the process genuinely leads to better results and increased efficiency. Our lived experience needs to be valued, because we know ourselves better and can understand our own experiences and communities in ways that adults cannot.
But there is another question we need to ask: which young people are actually being heard?
In my experience, youth participation and youth social action can sometimes be dominated by young people who are already actively engaged and have an interest or background in the topics being discussed. Though this isn’t inherently a bad thing, achieving meaningful and representative youth voice means widening the range of young people who have opportunities to participate.
There are groups of young people who would love to engage but aren’t able to due to barriers such as cost or time. Youth participation opportunities don’t always exist outside of school hours, and transport or food isn’t always covered when it should be. Similarly, there are young people who are written off as “hard to reach” but would be able to share extremely valuable insights and lived experience.
Creating meaningful youth participation therefore means creating the right conditions for young people to take part. That could mean offering more flexible opportunities, removing financial and practical barriers, finding new ways to reach young people, and providing training for those who may have the lived experience but not yet the confidence or skills to participate. Youth social action needs to be presented in a form that a young person would actually want to engage with, and young people with no previous experience should be encouraged to apply.
Just as a dragon fruit needs the right conditions to grow, young people need the right conditions to participate and flourish.
I know that meaningful change takes time, and there will always be practical constraints. But even small changes can bring us closer to a culture where young people are not just invited to contribute, but trusted to make decisions.
What youth social action looks like will continue to change, but one thing shouldn’t: young people’s opinions should be treated with the same respect as adults’ opinions. Our time, our effort and our lived experience should be valued. A world where youth voice consistently empowers young people, reflects the diversity of our communities and leads to meaningful change is a world done right.
So, maybe the question isn't whether a dragon fruit can grow in the UK. It’s what are we willing to change to make it possible?