Youth NGO Sector

NGOs give youths, defined by the United Nations General Assembly in 1985 as those between the ages of 14 and 24 years old, a unique chance to be heard on a global scale. Often intimidated by, ignorant of, or otherwise disengaged from the civil society sector, youths can find both factual and practical information on how to promote important issues facing youth around the world as well as how to work with others towards resolving issues that specifically interest them. This in turn creates a whole new generation of well-versed and passionate members of the global non-profit community.

There are numerous youth action councils with different relationships to local government as well as a few major, international non-governmental organizations primarily focused on children’s rights as well as principally operated by groups of youths with interest in various issues. Major issues most popular among youth NGOs include HIV/AIDS, human rights, diversity, the environment, education, and social entrepreneurship.

Youth Issues and Areas of Focus

Youth and Education

Besides providing an environment through which youth may become involved in efforts to do good, TakingITGlobal, a youth-led NGO headquartered in Toronto, Canada, provides other youth organizations with valuable organizational resources and operates educational programs for the classroom. An interactive online classroom offers students an opportunity to better understand different issues, network with other interested students around the world, and even collaborate on projects both global and local.

Youth and Poverty

The largest network of people working to end poverty is the Millennium Campaign, a campaign launched as part of a United Nations initiative to meet the goals proscribed in the September 2000 Millennium Summit. The Campaign “encourages young people worldwide to add their voice to the global fight against poverty. Through partnerships with various global youth networks and organizations, the Campaign supports youth-led movement across the world on the Millennium Goals.” The Pan-African and Pan-Asian Youth Leadership Summits were the first of a series of conferences dedicated to informing youth of their opportunities to discuss and plan anti-poverty advocacy strategies. The Millennium Campaign’s youth website is dedicated to educating youth about the Campaign’s goals, the steps that are being taken to meet those goals within the next 10 years, and how he or she can “add [his/her] own voice” by submitting essays, stories, or photos to the site.

Youth and Social Justice

Youth Action Network, or YAN, began as World Affairs Canada, a group of high school students in 1989. The group’s shift in 1994 from education to promoting action prompted the name change, and shortly after that YAN partnered with UNICEF and the Boys and Girls’ Club among other associations to organize the first Youth Week, a series of conferences highlighting major issues around the globe.

International Youth Week is one of YAN’s major projects. Each year for a week in May, youth from around the world are invited to a conference that hopes to “inspire proactive youth involvement” and to help determine actions that need to be implemented in various communities. YAN’s website states that it is “here to provide support to youth initiatives, by making connections between like-minded groups, and offering publicity, resources, and contacts. Besides offering libraries and manuals to help guide interested youth into taking proactive steps towards bettering their communities, YAN also has an online forum created by and for youth to connect, debate, and brainstorm ideas for future action. In addition to this, YAN sponsors an annual conference called Ruckus!, which focuses specifically on anti-racism and empowerment through education and activism. Currently geared toward helping high school students in the Ontario, Canada area to better understand the issues surrounding multiculturalism, racism, and social justice, YAN’s history of beginning local and growing global implies that Ruckus! may eventually provide its services to a much larger audience of high schoolers.

Youth Advocacy

Voices of Youth is a UNICEF-sponsored program that has, since 1995, emphasized getting youth involved in children’s rights issues. Its fun and informative website lists a number of worthy causes: child rights, millennium development goals, education, HIV/AIDS, and the environment among others. Within each section, the Voices of Youth website allows youth to explore issues, detailing goals for the future and what needs to be done to reach these goals. Also available as a learning tool for children interested in international issues are a variety of interactive games, video and audio files, and a discussion board.

The World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond has influenced national youth policy in recent years. Inspired by the former program, the United Nations has developed a 10-step guideline for countries interested in developing a National Youth Policy program. The ten issue points: participation, definition, situation analysis, resources, experience, information, institutional structure, political commitment, adaptation to local circumstances, and monitoring and evaluation highlight the importance placed on involving youth from an early age throughout the entire policy process in order for the next generation to best understand the most efficient policies and the manner in which they are fully carried out.

Youth, New Media, and Global Campaigns

TakingITGlobal is an NGO “led by youth and empowered by technology.” They position themselves with both for-profit companies and United Nations agencies to create a forum through which young members may learn about various issues affecting the globe and become involved in an effort to solve such problems. TakingITGlobal takes advantage of the fact that “young people have always been at the forefront of the information society, leading the creation and adoption of new technologies” to “capitalize on and realize the potential of technology – and the potential of youth – to create global networks and programs that address international development priorities.”

Such priorities include sustainable development, a coalition against HIV/AIDS, empowering young people living on small islands, and urban community improvement. In an effort to get the word out and mobilize their thousands of young members, the organization has developed several publications, films, and conferences. They have also made substantial efforts to provide local associations throughout the world, launching an online community available to those speaking English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian as well as specific sites with information for over 200 different countries and regions.

Besides traditional group websites, youth have taken to several networking sites to promote their issues. Websites such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com have become popular statement-making hubs. Besides joining groups that detail their political leanings, youth can invite others to join in as well as link to other websites offering more detail about helping a cause.

Conclusion and Forecast for the Future

As youth-oriented conferences become increasingly common and goals become increasingly attainable through better organization and more resources in rich nations, more and more youth globally can be expected to join in and voice their opinions and strategize about some very serious issues plaguing youth and adults globally as well as locally. In today’s ever-globalizing society, youth are exposed at a much younger age at the vast differentials in living standards across the globe, and this in itself will serve to boost civil society and the interest in helping others. Youth better educated in an international society can also put past mistakes to use for future problem-solving. Children are the NGO leaders of the future. They will also be the principal problem-solvers and initiators of international change, making them doubly significant in the civil service sector today. NGOs developed by and for youth are great for educating interested children of the different issue areas and potential solutions to some of the most plaguing international problems. However, it is just as important to catch the attention of youth who may not already be involved in (or even know of the existence of) such organizations. This way, much more of the population of the future will be aware of and sensitive to human rights, environmental, and disease-related concerns, among others.

External Links

www.takingitglobal.org www.youthactionnetwork.org www.unicef.org/voy/index.php http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/unya.htm http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/17/4/363 http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/nationalpolicy.htm http://www.millenniumcampaign.org/site/pp.asp?c=grKVL2NLE&b=260482 http://cyberschoolbus.un.org/mdgs/index.asp