MISSION

Our mission is to empower young Africans to work toward a better world through local and global initiatives in poverty eradication, human rights, environmental conservation & management, and social development.

VISION

1. Respecting and caring for the community of life that sustains me, and protecting ecological integrity.
2.wPromoting a culture of democracy, social justice, and peace and progress.
3. Reducing my careless attitude to environmental and human resources.

In March 24th-31st 2002, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Danish Organization- Nature and Youth, convened the first Global Youth Forum (GYF) 2002 at Jut land, Denmark. The GYF drew participants from 60 countries and Africa was represented by 16 delegates who constituted the African Regional Group (ARG) of the GYF.

At a resolution of the ARGs meeting held on the 29th March 2002, the executive committee of the group was mandated to carry on with the task of coordinating the views of African Youths on topical issues of environmental sustainability before and after the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, August – September 2002. Consequently, the African Youth Movement on environment was conceptualized then as an environmental initiative and the organisation held an African Youth Forum at the instance of UNEP and the Senegalese Government in Dakar, Senegal, May 27th-29th 2002.

The communiqué made a clarion call on the World and African leaders to address the looming catastrophe owing to environmental neglect emphasizing that the world’s fresh water resources for instance are not adequate to meet increasing water demands resulting from growing population, further aggravated by climate change and the results of war and conflicts.

From then henceforth, it became clear that there was the need to expand the scope of the organisation beyond environmental issues and with that came a change in the name of the organisation from African Youth Movement on Environment to African Youth Movement (AYM). Ours is a not-for-profit organization based in Nigeria and with networks in fifteen other African countries including South Africa, active in the fields of education, health improvements (HIV/AIDS), poverty eradication and environment, within the broad context of sustainability.