Amy Ochiel Ochieng

Amy Ochiel Ochieng is a lawyer and a public policy professional who has 7 years’ experience in advocacy and implementing programs on women’s rights, meaningful youth engagement and participation, digital rights, decolonisation, building and supporting movements in communities and democratic governance. Amy works as a Movement Building Officer at Amnesty International Kenya where she in charge of establishing, supporting and coordinating community-led Amnesty Circles of Conscience across Kenya.

Currently, she is a member of various advisory groups such as the Amnesty Global Youth Collective, Amnesty Campaigns Review Working Group and Africa Youth Steering Committee under the Office of the Youth Envoy at the African Union. Previously, she was part of the Youth Steering Committee of UN Women Africa. Amy is an alumnus of the YALI RLC EA program that was launched by former USA president Barack Obama in Africa to train young leaders on leadership. In 2017, she was elected as the chairperson of the YALI Alumni Chapter of Kenya where she led the chapter in implementing youth empowerment initiatives.

Why did you want to be involved in the YAL project as YAB?

My passion for ensuring youth organisations or youth movements receive funding for their initiatives made me want to be part of YAL project. Every day of my life I interact with youth who have innovative ideas and have the boldness and courage to materialise these ideas, but lack of finances is usually a big hindrance which either makes these ideas not materialize or not scale up. Being part of YAL project, will enable me to add my voice, knowledge and skills to ensure youth friendly funding mechanisms are put in place and youth initiatives are well-funded and that youth ideas are not merely a thought, but they are actualizsd and create a long term and sustainable impact.

How do you see the future of the AU-EU Labs?

I visualise this project providing thought leadership to similar philanthropic initiatives by donors or governments on matters of power shifting and youth-friendly funding mechanisms. Also, this project elevates both the voices and initiatives of youth at a national, continental and global level in order to influence governments and intergovernmental institutions’ priorities on matters of youth agendas.