The Channels Media Group and the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa at the London School of Economics and Political Science have launched the second season of their groundbreaking youth-centered podcast tagged ‘The Climb Podcast’.

UNICEF Nigeria has joined the podcast production team as a collaborating partner for this season.

The Climb Podcast debuted in January 2022 with a focus on telling extraordinary stories of young Africans. During the first season, it featured the stories of 24 young Africans drawn from different parts of the continent.

Stories told on the podcast touched on different aspects of youth life in Africa – from young entrepreneurs to fearless changemakers, disruptive innovators to brilliant activists, emerging thought leaders to young diplomats in the African Union, and beyond. The podcast reached thousands of listeners and recorded notable impact stories from guests and listeners alike.

Building on the success of the first season, the production team is set to widen the scope of the podcast and heighten its impact by not just telling stories, but empowering young Africans to tell their own stories and foreground to the world those things that are important to them. For the new season, young people from across the continent are invited to send in their story entries.

For every month in the next year, the podcast production team will select and work with one young storyteller from an African country to produce and publish a podcast episode. There will be no limits to the breadth of ideas and stories that will be accepted – stories of life as a young person in your country, stories of innovation, stories of community impact, and general stories that you just think the world needs to know.

The second season, organisers said, “will build upon our remarkable work”.

“Alongside the podcast, every story will be accompanied by weekly social media videos and illustrative graphics that will provide more context to our stories and bring each month’s episode to life,” they said.

For the Channels Media Group, The Firoz Lalji Institute of Africa, and UNICEF Nigeria, it is yet another opportunity to raise the voices of Africa’s youths and place them at the heart of the global development discourse.

“As change-makers in the broadcast industry, we are thrilled to partner with the London School of Economics and UNICEF Nigeria for the second season of this impactful project, confident it will inspire change and resonate globally,” the Chairman of Channels Media Group Dr John Momoh said.