ELEVATE Model and Learning Approach
Empowering Youth-led and Youth-focused Action for Change
The ELEVATE initiative — encompassing both a Model and a Learning Approach — responds to challenges linked to overlapping crises — ecological, social, economic, and political — that disproportionately affect young people and their futures.
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It builds pathways for sustainable collaboration and shared accountability between youth-led actors and institutional systems.
ELEVATE is not a single program — it is a framework for transformation that merges practical support with learning and reflection, ensuring that youth leadership, evidence, and justice are at the heart of systemic change.
ELEVATE MODEL
At Future Rights, we shift power to child-, adolescent-, and youth-led initiatives, ensuring they drive sustainable impact and systemic change. Instead of imposing top-down solutions, we create an enabling space where young people shape their own narratives, influence policies, and lead change in their communities.
Our ELEVATE model is a structured yet adaptable , co-designed to empower youth-led initiatives through key stages—Engagement, Lift, Empowerment, Validation, Amplification, Thrive, and Evolution. T
This model equips changemakers with the resources, connections, and support needed to advance their goals while ensuring that grassroots solutions influence institutional and global decision-making
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Engage
Lift
Empower
Validate
Amplify
Thrive
Evolve
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Engage – Reaching out and identifying innovative youth-led initiatives.
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Lift – Providing visibility and support to help them grow when and if needed.
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Empower – Equipping them with the knowledge and tools to achieve their goals.
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Validate – Connecting them with other initiatives, youth and experts for knowledge exchange and mutual support.
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Amplify – Enhancing their impact and networking opportunities.
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Thrive – Ensuring their sustainability by supporting access to funding, partnerships and long-term resources.
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Evolve – Helping them continuously grow and adapt for future challenges.
HOW DOES IT WORK IN PRACTICE?
Partnership System
Unlike conventional partnerships, Future Rights acts as a catalyst, guiding initiatives through a collaboratively defined process within a set timeframe, focused on specific objectives. Our approach is mutual, evolving, and rooted in equal exchange, where we provide tailored support at every step of the ELEVATE model to strengthen youth- and child-led initiatives.
1️⃣ Identifying Initiatives – We identify youth- and child-led initiatives through word of mouth, open calls, social media, or referrals. We take the time to get to know each other, understand the initiative’s vision, objective, and assess its needs.
2️⃣ Mapping the Starting Point – Together, we determine where the initiative stands within the ELEVATE model. This could involve (and not be limited to):
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Structuring an organization or collective
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Co-designing a project
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Strengthening capacity and knowledge
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Defining advocacy or action strategies
3️⃣ Customising Support – Based on this assessment, we co-develop a tailored approach, adapting the model and
selecting relevant support interventions from the ELEVATE menu or designing new, customised solutions that best fit the initiative’s goals.
4️⃣ Building with Evidence & Accountability – Every collaboration is underpinned by:
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Evidence-based action & data collection
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Knowledge of accountability mechanisms
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A strong foundation in human, child, and environmental rights & protection
Support within the model: The Services
The ELEVATE Model is Future Rights’ service and partnership system. It provides youth-led and youth focused initiatives with structured yet adaptable support built around six interlinked functions
Evidence Based Research
Support for data collection, research, and monitoring to strengthen rights-based
advocacy and institutional accountability.
Capacity Building& Strengthening
Tailored learning on leadership, governance, and program design
Technical &Operational Assistance
Hands-on support to enhance planning, management, and financial systems.
Advocacy & Awareness Campaigning
Amplifying youth voices and supporting campaigns that challenge systemic
injustice.
Experience and Learning Sharing
Facilitating the exchange of knowledge and best practices between initiatives
Visibility and Sustainability
Promoting youth and child led initiative and helping secure long-term viability through networking and access to funding opportunities.
Implementation Journey
At Future Rights, we are committed to building and refining the ELEVATE model through a step-by-step process. By testing it in different contexts, we aim to adapt, improve, and scale a model that is truly responsive to the needs of youth- and child-led initiatives.
Our approach follows a four-phase journey:
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PHASE 1 (Short Term): DESIGN, CONSULT, CONTEXTUALISE
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PHASE 2 (Short-Medium Term): PILOT & LESSONS LEARNED
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PHASE 3 (Medium Term): REFINE & SCALE UP
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PHASE 4 (Long Term): SYSTEMATISE
The ELEVATE LEARNING APPROACH
Shaping Mindsets for Justice and Participation
The ELEVATE Learning Approach complements the Model by spreading awareness and capacity around the core principles that underpin all Future Rights work — justice, participation, evidence, accountability, and lived experience.
Where the Model provides services and tools, the Learning Approach provides knowledge and reflection. It is the educational and advocacy branch of the ELEVATE ecosystem — designed to engage youth, institutions, and allies in rethinking how change is made and who leads it
The ELEVATE Foundation Course is designed as an entry point to the ELEVATE Learning Approach.It provides youth-led, youth-focused, and partner organizations with shared grounding in the five pillars and translates them into practical learning modules that combine theory, reflection, and application.
1. Justice and Systems Thinking
2. Participation and Power
3. Evidence for Change
4. Accountability in Practice
5. Action and Agency
Ad Hoc / Thematic Trainings expand upon these modules to address context-specific needs such as:
Environmental and Climate Justice• Conservation and climate resilience• Gender, Inclusion, and Social Protection• Conflict Sensitivity and Peacebuilding inProtracted Crises• Digital Participation and EmergingTechnologies• Participatory Monitoring and Rightsbased Accountability• Rapid Assessments• Child friendly methods and traumainformed methods• Child Protection, Mental Health andPsychosocial Support• Migration, Displacement andReintegration• Project Cycle Managament• Human Rights, International Law and adhoc legal instruments• Data Collection Methodologies
Each session is co-created with youth practitioners and local partners, ensuring relevance, accessibility, anddiversity of perspectives.
