This chapter explores how tokenism often features in community development work with and for young people. We explore how Nzumari Africa focus on youth leadership to create systemic shifts in Kenya. They mobilise young people to challenge the status quo and address the barriers to their wider participation. We focus on Yvonne Ochieng's personal journey from high school graduate to programme manager, to position the very real barriers to youth participation that she and her peers have experienced and how they have pushed forward their agenda to be heard as a community. As we discuss Nzumari Africa's approach to radical democracy, we reflect on shared practice, drawing parallels with Su Lyn Corcoran and Kate Pahl's research experience with young people in the United Kingdom, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Almost three-quarters of the population of Kenya is under the age of 30 (World Population Review, nd). Across the country, 46 per cent of the urban population live in informal settlements (World Bank, 2018) and this number is greater when only considering Nairobi where over 60 per cent of the population reside informally on 6 per cent of the city's available land (Onyango and Tostensen, 2015). Congested standards of living, and associated problems facing young people in informal settlements, result in complex and challenging socio-cultural and economic environments. Such conditions are further exacerbated for those also experiencing forced displacement, migration, unstable families, violence and mental health problems. Inequities, including those linked to poverty and gender, shape all aspects of adolescent health and wellbeing (World Health Organization, nd).

Despite young people making up a majority of the population, they predominantly remain on the periphery of Kenya's social, economic and political affairs. There is competition for a limited number of statemaintained school places (for example, Dixon and Tooley, 2012) and young people who are disadvantaged by being out of school are also relatively disadvantaged in socio-economic outcomes and lack sufficient economic empowerment (Ministry of Public Service, Kenya, 2018). Given predicted levels of population growth and associated urbanisation, there is an increasing need for social services related to education and other social amenities that improve skills generation, employment and health-related outcomes (Mahabir et al, 2016).