IN communities like August Town in Kingston and Cornwall Courts in St James, young people face daily reminders of unmet promises: roads that remain unpaved, schools lacking basic resources, community centres that never materialised. But for Africka Stephens, executive founder of Fi We Children Foundation, these aren’t just stories of neglect — they’re opportunities for youth empowerment.

The Fi We Children Foundation (FWCF) is a non-partisan, non-government organisation dedicated to empowering Jamaican youth, with a strong focus on underserved communities. Founded by Stephens while she was a student at The University of the West Indies (The UWI), Mona in 2019, FWCF equips young people with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to lead, advocate, and participate meaningfully in national development through education, advocacy, mentorship, and community engagement.

The organisation’s latest initiative, supported by a grant from Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal (JAMP) with funding from the European Union, represents a bold bet on youth as agents of change in Jamaica’s governance landscape. Since the initiative’s launch in October 2025, FWCF has been working to equip 80 underserved youth aged 16 to 29 with budget literacy and civic accountability tools so that they may engage meaningfully to identify and track community related allocations from the national budget.

The inspiration for the project came from a sobering discovery when during an online focus group with five youth from Kingston and St James, Stephens and her team found that only one participant had any awareness of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), a critical component of Jamaica’s national budget designed to support community and educational needs.

“We were inspired to apply for this grant after recognising the gap in national budget literacy among our youth,” Stephens explained. “Conversations about budgets often feel distant or complicated to many young people, filled with numbers, protocols, and technical language that can seem inaccessible or unrelatable. Through Eyes Pon Di Budget: Youth for Fiscal Justice and Accountability, we aim to bridge this gap by empowering children and young adults in Kingston and St James to understand how the national budget affects their lives and communities.”

Although youth represent over 30 per cent of Jamaica’s population, they remain significantly underrepresented in public budget processes. The Caribbean Policy Research Institute’s Open Budget Survey Jamaica scored just 41 out of 100 overall, and a dismal 18 out of 100 for public participation, ranking the country 55th out of 125 surveyed nations.

Since the kick-off in late 2025, the project has been focusing on the CDF as an entry point for youth budget literacy, engagement, monitoring and advocacy. The CDF is a set-aside in the country’s national budget specifically designated for local level improvements in each constituency. It includes requirements for constituency consultations, giving citizens a formal avenue to participate in deciding how funds are allocated. Additionally, there are reporting requirements that create accountability mechanisms, making the CDF an ideal focus for the applied knowledge and skills building that the training provides within the five-month timeframe.

Through capacity-building bootcamps and advocacy workshops, the project’s target youth are gaining a foundational understanding of Jamaica’s budget process, Parliament’s role, and how to navigate accountability tools developed by JAMP.

By the end of the programme in March 2026, participants will have the knowledge and competency to be able to access CDF information online, identify allocations for their community, attend constituency consultations to voice priorities, visit project sites to verify progress, document findings with photos and reports, and submit formal requests for information when transparency is lacking.

The youth will produce 15 Member of Parliament (MP) profiles that document performance and hold representatives accountable. Two community charters being developed by participants will foster transparency and civic accountability at the grassroots level. Through youth-led watchdog activities currently underway, participants are tracking two public projects using data from JAMP’s website, site visits, and interviews. The resulting Youth Budget Report Cards will be submitted to local MPs in Kingston and St James before the project concludes.

As part of the project, FWCF is developing “Budget Watch JA”, a digital media campaign featuring infographics, post-workshop interviews, and vox pops from youth at the UWI and Papine market. With an expected reach of over 30,000 young people, the campaign will demystify the CDF and budget processes using youth-friendly formats.

The FWCF’s project is supported by JAMP with funding from the European Union.

“We believe that young people should be informed, engaged, and confident in holding leaders accountable for how public funds are managed,” Stephens said. “After all, the national budget is fi wi business, and our youth deserve to have their eyes on it.”

Africka Stephens, executive founder, Fi We Children Foundation, established the organisation when she was a student at The University of the West Indies, Mona.