From the Community to Copenhagen: INUWA International at the Civic Youth Forum 2026
Founder Laila Moen joins international youth leaders in Copenhagen, bringing a message of human dignity, accountable leadership, peace, health, education and meaningful youth participation
“If we are developing leaders, what are we developing them to lead towards?”
This was one of the questions at the heart of the message carried by Laila Moen, Founder of INUWA International, during the Civic Youth Forum 2026 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
From 17 to 20 September, the Civic Youth Forum brought together young leaders, students, NGO representatives, social entrepreneurs, civic innovators and emerging policymakers for a programme centred on “Engaging Youth in Democracy & Governance.” The programme included discussions and training on youth participation in decision-making, governance, accountability, public policy, advocacy, civic leadership and community-led solutions.
For INUWA International, however, the significance of participating went beyond attending another international conference.
It was about bringing the realities of communities into spaces where leadership, policy and development are discussed.
It was about listening.
It was about challenging assumptions.
And most importantly, it was about asking what happens after the speeches, photographs, certificates and applause are over.
Why INUWA International Was in Copenhagen
INUWA International works across interconnected areas including human rights, health and HIV advocacy, education, youth and women’s empowerment, leadership, social inclusion, entrepreneurship and community development.
At the centre of that work is a simple belief:
People should not merely be treated as beneficiaries of decisions made somewhere else.
They should participate in identifying the problems affecting them, shaping responses and holding institutions and leaders accountable for what follows.
This made the Civic Youth Forum particularly relevant to INUWA’s direction.
The forum was designed around civic leadership, democratic participation, public-policy understanding, accountability, advocacy and community organising. Its programme included sessions on youth participation in decision-making, transparency, inclusion, evidence-based advocacy and policy development.
These are not abstract ideas for INUWA.
They affect whether a girl stays in school.
Whether a young person believes their future matters.
Whether a woman has economic choices.
Whether someone living with HIV can access healthcare without discrimination.
Whether refugees and migrants understand their rights and can participate in the communities in which they now live.
And whether communities are invited into development only after decisions have already been made or are respected as partners from the beginning.
For Founder Laila Moen, attending the forum therefore had a clear purpose: to contribute a community-centred perspective to international conversations while also learning from other young leaders and building relationships that may strengthen INUWA’s future work.
“Purpose Over Power. Protection Over Position.”
During her youth statement, Laila challenged a common understanding of leadership.
“If we are developing leaders, what are we developing them to lead towards?”
Leadership, she argued, cannot only be measured by influence, titles, positions or access to important institutions.
It must eventually be measured by what it protects and what it changes.
Her message was captured in two simple lines:
Purpose over power.Protection over position.
For INUWA, this philosophy is important.
A leadership title is not the final achievement.
Being photographed inside an international institution is not the final achievement.
Being invited to speak is not the final achievement.
The question is what happens because access was gained.
Who benefits?
What knowledge returns to the community?
What relationship is built?
What opportunity opens?
What decision changes?
And what problem becomes more solvable?
This is the kind of leadership INUWA International seeks to develop: leadership that listens before it instructs, serves before it celebrates itself, and measures progress through people rather than visibility alone.
Bringing Congo Into the Conversation
Laila also spoke from the perspective of someone whose understanding of peace is shaped by the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
For communities that have experienced conflict, peace cannot be reduced to diplomatic language or the absence of gunfire.
Peace is also experienced through daily life.
It can mean a child being able to attend school safely.
A family being able to remain in its home.
A survivor being able to reach healthcare.
A woman having control over decisions affecting her life.
A young person growing up without violence becoming normalised.
A person living with HIV being able to access treatment, information and dignity.
This formed an important part of the message brought into Copenhagen.
Human rights are not meaningful only because they appear in conventions, policies or speeches.
They become meaningful when people can actually experience those rights.
That is where governance, peace, health, education and community development begin to intersect.
And it is why INUWA International does not see these issues as separate programmes
existing in separate boxes.
They affect one another.
When Education, Poverty and Gender Meet
The Copenhagen discussions also connected strongly with INUWA International's current community work in eastern Uganda.
During its 2026 community programme around Sironko District near Mbale, INUWA International and its local team have been engaging with communities around educational vulnerability, household poverty and barriers affecting children’s school participation.
Working alongside St Rima Education Center, the programme has identified more than 500 children, including over 200 girls, facing different educational vulnerabilities.
The experience has reinforced an important lesson:
Education cannot always be addressed by looking at the classroom alone.
A child may want to learn but live in a household struggling to meet basic costs.
A girl may be enrolled but carry significant responsibilities at home.
A parent may value education but have no reliable source of income.
A school may have committed teachers while still operating within serious resource limitations.
This is why INUWA increasingly approaches education through a wider household and community lens.
The principle behind this thinking is simple:
Empower the mother.Educate the child.Transform the community.
It also explains why discussions about governance and leadership matter to an organisation working at village level.
A policy decision made far away can affect whether a teacher has resources.
Whether healthcare reaches a community.
Whether young people have opportunities.
Whether women can participate economically.
And whether local organisations have the conditions necessary to build sustainable solutions.
Health Is Also a Question of Rights
Another important thread running through the Founder’s message was health—particularly HIV, stigma, access to care and human dignity.
For INUWA International, health is not simply a medical issue.
It is also connected to human rights.
People may have a clinic nearby and still fear seeking treatment because of stigma.
Medication may exist while misinformation prevents people from using it effectively.
Services may technically be available while discrimination makes accessing them humiliating or unsafe.
Young people may receive information about disease but not receive spaces where they can ask honest questions without judgement.
This is why INUWA’s health advocacy places importance on education, dignity, community engagement and accurate information alongside healthcare access.
The wider question is the same one that applies to governance:
Does the system work for the person who needs it?
Youth Participation Must Mean More Than Attendance
One of the strongest themes emerging from INUWA’s participation in Copenhagen was the difference between youth inclusion and youth influence.
The Civic Youth Forum itself focused strongly on participation in governance and decision-making, with programme sessions covering civic rights and responsibilities, advocacy, coalition-building, transparency, accountability, inclusion and policy influence.
But Laila pushed the conversation one step further.
Inviting young people into a room is important.
It is not enough.
Giving a young person a microphone is important.
It is not enough.
Creating youth councils, forums and conferences is important.
But their value must eventually be judged by whether participation has consequences.
INUWA’s position is that young people should not only be consulted after decisions have effectively been made.
They should be part of identifying priorities, designing responses, implementing solutions
and evaluating results.
As Laila has repeatedly expressed through her work:
Young people already have voices. Institutions must be prepared to listen, trust, invest and allow those voices to influence decisions.
That distinction matters.
Presence is not automatically participation.
Participation is not automatically influence.
And influence is not meaningful unless something can eventually be changed.
What Happens After the Applause?
Perhaps one of the most important ideas carried into the forum was accountability.
International conferences regularly produce powerful speeches.
People exchange contacts.
Photographs are taken.
Declarations are made.
Participants return home inspired.
But inspiration without follow-through has limits.
Laila therefore raised a practical question:
What happens after the applause ends?
For youth forums and leadership spaces to become stronger, INUWA believes conversations should increasingly conclude with clear commitments.
A simple accountability structure can begin with:
One commitment. One responsible person or institution. One deadline. One measurable result.
And then return after a defined period—perhaps 90 days—and ask:
What happened?
What did not happen?
Why?
What changed?
What needs to happen next?
Accountability does not make leadership less inspiring.
It makes leadership credible.
Standing Inside UN City Copenhagen
One of the significant moments of the Copenhagen experience was the opportunity to be at UN City Copenhagen.
UN City is home to ten United Nations agencies working across areas including health, migration, refugees, food security, development, humanitarian response and other dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals. The complex serves as a hub for cooperation and knowledge-sharing among UN organisations based in Copenhagen.
For the Founder of a growing community-development organisation, standing behind a podium marked UN City Copenhagen carried symbolic weight.
But symbolism also carries responsibility.
For INUWA, entering international institutions should never become an end in itself.
International exposure matters when it helps community organisations understand global systems, establish credible relationships, learn stronger approaches, access knowledge and eventually create better outcomes for the people they serve.
The objective is therefore not simply:
How do we get INUWA into more international rooms?
The stronger question is:
How can the rooms INUWA enters strengthen the communities to which INUWA returns?
International Rooms, Local Responsibility
This idea sits at the heart of INUWA International's evolving approach to partnerships.
The organisation is developing work across different social and geographical contexts, but it does not intend to replicate programmes simply because something worked somewhere else.
Communities are different.
Their histories are different.
Their systems are different.
Their resources are different.
And sustainable development requires listening before intervention.
In Uganda, that may mean sitting with teachers, parents, young people and local leaders to understand barriers to education.
In Norway, it may mean creating spaces where refugees, migrants, women and young people can better understand rights, responsibilities, social systems and pathways into education, employment, entrepreneurship and civic life.
Within health advocacy, it can mean connecting global HIV science and rights-based approaches with language and conversations communities actually understand.
Across all of these areas, the principle remains the same:
Start with people.
Learning Across Borders
The Civic Youth Forum was also an opportunity for human connection.
Throughout the Copenhagen programme, Laila met participants from different countries and professional backgrounds, including young leaders from Zambia, Lebanon and other parts of the world.
These relationships are important because community challenges rarely exist neatly within national borders.
Young people in different countries may face different political systems but still encounter exclusion.
Women may live in different cultures yet experience similar economic barriers.
Community organisations may operate under very different funding environments while facing the same challenge of sustainability.
Education systems differ, but families everywhere understand the importance of giving children opportunities.
Learning across borders does not mean pretending that every challenge is identical.
It means asking what can be learned from another person’s experience—and what must remain locally led.
Leadership Also
Means Listening
International leadership culture often celebrates the person holding the microphone.
INUWA wants to protect something equally important:
The person listening.
Leadership is not only knowing what to say.
It is recognising when your original assumption was wrong.
It is hearing communities when their priorities differ from your project proposal.
It is changing a plan when evidence shows another approach may work better.
It is admitting when an organisation does not yet have the answer.
And it is making room for the people closest to a problem to contribute to the solution.
That is particularly important as INUWA grows.
Growth without accountability can weaken an organisation.
Expansion without systems can create risk.
Partnerships without shared values can damage trust.
Visibility without substance can eventually become empty.
INUWA therefore sees opportunities such as the Civic Youth Forum not only as platforms for exposure, but as spaces for learning how to build a stronger, more accountable and more sustainable organisation.
From Sustainable Development Goals to Daily Life
The setting at UN City also created a natural connection with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
UN City Copenhagen’s resident agencies share the wider 2030 Agenda, and the SDGs address interconnected priorities including poverty, health, education, gender equality, reduced inequality, peace and strong institutions.
For INUWA, however, the SDGs only become meaningful when translated into daily reality.
Quality education is not simply SDG 4 when a child is standing outside a classroom because a household cannot afford school-related costs.
Gender equality is not simply SDG 5 when a girl’s future is determined for her.
Good health is not simply SDG 3 when fear and stigma stop someone from entering a clinic.
Peace and strong institutions are not simply SDG 16 when citizens cannot trust the systems meant to protect them.
The goals give the world a common framework.
Communities give those goals a human face.
The INUWA Question: What Will We Do Differently?
INUWA International returned from these conversations with an important responsibility.
Not merely to report that our Founder attended.
Not merely to display photographs from Copenhagen.
But to ask:
What will this participation change in our work?
It should strengthen our approach to community consultation.
It should push us to improve how we document outcomes.
It should strengthen accountability between leadership, volunteers, partners and communities.'
It should encourage young people participating in INUWA programmes to contribute to
decisions not merely activities.
It should strengthen how we connect our health, education, gender, leadership and livelihood programmes instead of treating them as unrelated issues.
And it should remind us that international partnerships must ultimately create value beyond organizational visibility.
Building an Organization That Can Carry the Vision
INUWA International is still growing.
That matters.
Growth requires ambition, but it also requires discipline.
As the organization develops activities in Norway and internationally, it must continue strengthening governance, safeguarding, monitoring, financial accountability, volunteer management, partnerships and programme quality.
The ambition is not simply to become bigger.
It is to become stronger.
More credible.
More accountable.
More sustainable.
And more capable of demonstrating that community-level work can produce meaningful change.
The Copenhagen experience therefore becomes part of something larger.
It is one step in building relationships between grassroots experience and international dialogue.
Between communities and institutions.
Between lived experience and policy.
Between advocacy and implementation.
A Message Beyond Copenhagen
The Civic Youth Forum 2026 will eventually end.
Delegates will return to different countries.
Badges will be stored away.
Photographs will move down social-media feeds.
The real test begins afterwards.
Will the conversations change how we lead?
Will new relationships become meaningful partnerships?
Will institutions make room for young people not simply as participants but as contributors?
Will community organizations bring what they learned home?
And will young leaders remain accountable to the people whose stories they carry into international spaces?
For INUWA International, the answer must be found through action.
Because leadership is not only demonstrated by where we are invited.
It is demonstrated by what we build afterwards.
As Founder Laila Moen expressed during the Copenhagen programme:
“What we do after the applause ends—that is where leadership begins.”
And perhaps that is the message that best captures INUWA International's presence in Copenhagen.
We came to learn.
We came to contribute.
We came to listen.
We came to connect.
But we also came carrying something with us:
The experiences of communities.
The questions of young people.
The dignity of people who are too often discussed without being heard.
And the conviction that development must ultimately move from conversation to implementation.
Comments