GYFA is a youth-led organisation (the key leadership is in their early 20s) that was formed to help youth who had been displaced due to the conflict that began in 1986 between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government. The organisation was identified by Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children through a participatory study it conducted in northern Uganda in 2001 in which young people interviewed their peers about the concerns of youth. Through this study, youth were trained in survey methodology and data analysis, and learned to advocate on the issues that were identified by their peers such as desire for education, jobs and health care. After the study, the young researchers founded GYFA to focus attention on the needs of adolescents/youth displaced by the conflict.

GYFA promotes community participation in development activities to ensure sustainability, community ownership and trust in leadership. GYFA has undertaken youth-led human rights and conflict transformation monitoring and advocacy efforts as well as HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence prevention programmes among young people in the several internally displaced persons (IDP) camps and throughout Paicho Sub-County. GYFA has spoken at the United Nations about youth participation and rights during armed conflict. They are a key youth member of the NGO Forum sponsored by DANIDA in Gulu.

Youth, Children, Conflict, Education, Reproductive Health, HIV/AIDS.

GYFA hopes that, through its work, adolescents will know how to prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV/AIDS, and know where to go for prevention information, condoms, counseling and treatment. More centrally, GYFA wants the community to realise that they have fundamental roles and responsibilities in providing and demanding quality reproductive health services by utilising their local human resources.

GYFA aims to address young people’s concerns about inadequate health facilities, lack of education, poverty, insecurity and widespread human rights violations as a result of the 20-year insurgency in conflict-ridden northern Uganda.