Youth Service Institute

The Youth Service Institute is YSA´s (Youth Service America) signature national training event from 17th till 19th October in Houston (TX). Over the course of three days, participants will:

• share their ideas with others dedicated to youth engagement

• participate in hands-on workshops that will invigorate
• engage in thought-provokating session that will inspire
• get their hands dirty in community service projects in the Houston community
• plan for Global Youth Service Day or Semester of Service

Learn more and register now here.

Source: YSA

 

Youth Changing the World

A new YSA (Youth Service America) resource, a service project toolkit for young people, helps them to take action on an issue that is important and discover their power to change the world through service.
Whether you are doing a service project with friends, family, a school group, a community organization or a faith-based youth group. This new toolkit will take you step-by-step through planning your service project.
You can download this toolkit here and also other YSA ressources (free, printed copies).

Source: YSA

 

A better World through Human Rights?

Probably you realized that I published less entries last time. There is a big reason: I join for 5 weeks the online-seminar (webinar) "Discovering Young Leaders Programme" with 100 participants from 54 countries. We discuss a lot of topics about Youth Leadership.
This Commonwealth course is designed as an online interactive forum to inspire, empower and expose young people to views and concepts of leadership, global trends in youth empowerment and the principles of youth development across the Commonwealth.
Participants are expected to be leaders of youth organizations, undergraduate students, aspiring youth leaders, and heads and members of National Youth Councils and youth associations/clubs, and are between 15 and 29 years old.
The programme will create a platform for engaging past youth leaders and current senior officials as guest panelists on issues of governance and leadership. Past youth leaders including RYC Chairs, National Student leaders, NYC chairs, and notable youth activists will be guest panelists. The programme will also feature senior government officials including a Directors of Youth to join in the interactions with participants.
Probably I will inform you about some main discussions in this seminar.
Last time there was following question:
You know the basic rights, like right to vote, to education, to strike...
But why there are still countries without education and food for everyone?
Maybe you can find the right answer?
A better world through Human Rights - this is also a topic of the annual UN Students Conference on Human Rights from 5th till 7th December in New York City.
While the theme of the conference changes each year, the goals of this annual event remain the same: to promote awareness and learning and to prompt action among student leaders about human rights in general, as well as the specific rights issues related to the current year's theme. The conference is also an opportunity for student leaders to network and develop important leadership skills such as public speaking, team and consensus building, negotiating, and research and drafting. Finally, the conference provides participants with first-hand experience in using information technologies such as video-conferencing and web-casting.
So, get informed about your rights and opportunities.
More information here.

Source: Inter Connection 21 (IC21)

Youth and Land

The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) is an alliance of global regional and national partners contributing to poverty alleviation through land reform, improved land management and security of tenure particularly through the development and dissemination of pro-poor and gender-sensitive land tools.
At the sixth World Urban Forum, GLTN are keen on addressing the intersection of youth, urbanization and land. One of the key sessions they facilitated during the World Urban Youth Assembly was titled: ‘Equitable access to land – Strengthening youth engagement in providing tenure security for all‘.

Powered by a scoping study, ‘TOWARDS A YOUTH AGENDA FOR THE GLOBAL LAND TOOL NETWORK’, here are some key takeouts:
Despite the increasing visibility of youth in the sustainable development and urbanisation discourse, their role within the land sector is unclear. While property rights and economic opportunities are expanding for youth, land is largely seen as an adult privilege. Part of the resistance to improving youth access to land stems from the construction of ‘youth‘ as a problematic, transitional and ill-defined category. Dominant attitudes expect youth to wait until adulthood before asserting their land rights. Alternatively, youth are expected to access land through adults or compete in the skewed land markets.

The following five questions were posed to youth (during the study):

• Why or how is land important to youth?
• Do youth face more obstacles (as compared to adults) in accessing land? If so what are these obstacles?
• What must be done to strengthen land rights of young people (including young women)?
• How can youth contribute to developing more effective land tools and strategies?
• Are you aware of any best practices, where youth have been successful in improving their secure tenure or land rights?

You can find some answers here or you can read the whole study.

If you have a point of view that you would like to share you can comment on their site or follow the Youth and Land discussion at the World Urban Forum on twitter; follow @gltnnews as well as the #youthandland hashtag.

Source: Youth21

Building the Future We Want

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) and the Department of Public Information (DPI) invite you to participate in an online global forum, “Building the Future We Want” from 12th to 24th September 2012. Following up on the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) which took place in June, the United Nations is continuing its efforts to promote sustainable development and to prepare a new development agenda that will take us beyond 2015.

It takes only five simple steps to support this campaign:

1. Get the word out to your friends and followers.
2. Visit them on Facebook and/or use #futureWEwant or #beyond2015 on Twitter.
3. Participate in the online forum, and ask your friends, and family members to post their questions on what, why, and how countries should deal with sustainable development challenges (rising unemployment, food security, biodiversity, climate change, sustainable consumption and production, land degradation, water, energy, sustainable cities, financing and technology transfer). Selected questions will be answered live on 24th September.
4. Bring an impact to the campaign by posting the graphic identity, “Building the Future We Want” on Facebook (Profile and cover pictures) and on Twitter with a hyperlink to www.un.org/en/ecosoc/we. Downloadable visuals (Images and promo video) are available here. 
5. On 24th September, watch live responses to your questions.

More information here.

Source: DESA

Wake up Europe - It´s time to act!

All across Europe political groups and subcultures that feed off racist ideologies are on the move, penetrating mainstream politics with devastating consequences for the minorities targeted.
The impact of racism and discrimination on our societies today is severe: it affects all of us in various ways – whether we are its subjects or objects – making social cohesion impossible and paving the way for conflict.
On the background of these examples and many others, UNITED is organising this upcoming international conference to be held on 12th till 17th November in Finland.
In Finland, migrants and ethnic minorities face prejudice, discrimination and racism that affect, for instance, equal access to work and equal treatment in schools. Racism in different forms– varying from exclusion and name-calling to violence is part of everyday life for many visible minorities, though racist incidents are rarely reported. Support for young victims of racism is insufficient and this need is not properly recognised. Finland has a relatively small migrant population; the biggest migrant groups today are Estonians, Russian and Somalis. There are four national ethnic and language minorities: Finnish Roma, Tatars, Finnish-Swedish and Sami, last one being the only indigenous people in EU.

Creative approaches to tackle discrimination
In this climate of hate, they are heartened by acts of courage and the strength of free-thinking individuals; people who are not afraid to speak up for equality, multiculturalism and solidarity; people who go against the status quo to fight for what they believe in.
The European antiracist movement is full of such people, and you are invited to join them in Finland to create one unified voice that shows the true value of diversity.
During the conference, they will share fresh strategies and best practices for the European antidiscrimination movement. In a time when far-right groups are more and more successful in addressing a large part of the population, our response needs to be visible and creative: It’s time to ACT!

The working groups below will discuss such issues from different angles. Programme

• Just Roma -The right-less communities: This working group focuses on involving Roma communities in the fight against discrimination and marginalisation, also on the inclusion of Roma rights in the antidiscrimination movement. They will also deal with the problem of how Roma are represented in the media and what solutions can be found to break stereotypes.
• The InVisables - Which rights for undocumented migrants? This working group focuses on the situation for undocumented migrants in European countries. They will take a look at how human rights, basic needs, employment and education are met/missing for sans papiers in different European countries, and how different the human rights movement addresses these issues both at grassroots and advocacy levels.
• School for All - Antidiscrimination education in school: In this working group they will search for the most effective way to implement an atmosphere of antidiscrimination within formal education environments. They will also look at how NGOs and schools can cooperate and exchange good practices.
• Power to the Youth! Volunteering in NGOs: In this working group they will look at volunteering as a form of non-formal education and the possibility to obtain new skills, knowledge and competences as well as new support for the antidiscrimination movement. They will also look at tools that help to evaluate and monitor learning processes in relation to key competences involved in volunteering.
• Online (H)Activism - New media in our struggle: The Internet and social media era provides a variety of new tools, methods and approaches that activists can use in their everyday work. In this working group they will explore the opportunities that these tools, methods and approaches provide and create strategies to best apply them in our everyday work.
• Artivism - Creative action against racism: In this working group they will discuss the possibilities of creative methods and art in activism and explore inspiring examples, for example in antiracist campaigns. This creative working group will offer an open environment to bring forth and test all forms of ideas and methods.

UNITED is the largest pan-European anti-racist network of more than 550 organisations. With its conferences antiracist and human rights activists from all parts of Europe meet and discuss effective ways of combating racism and discrimination. At a recent UNITED conference held in May 2012 in Turkey (TR) delegates from 92 organisations from 35 countries look at specific issues, such as refugees rights, strategies to tackle Islamophobia, the creation of a Minority Rights Network, strategies for a critical approach to the media and many more.

Read the full information here.

If your organisation is interested to nominate a representative, send an Email as soon as possible (Deadline 19 September 2012), preferably by email to finland@unitedagainstracism.org

Source: UNITED

UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for Artists

 The UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for Artists (hereinafter called the Programme) promote the mobility of young artists in order to enrich their personal perspectives, to develop their creative project, enabling them to engage in a cultural diversity dialogue.
The Programme offers residencies to young artists (between 25 and 35 years old) worldwide. UNESCO-Aschberg advocates and promotes creativity, highlights cultural exchanges and the need for artists to enrich their experience through contact with other cultures.
These residencies are catalysts for the development of artistic expression in all cultures of the world.
The UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries Programme was integrated in UNESCO's strategy in 1994 to promote cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue. It aims to provide experience to young artists and to help them complete their training in countries other than their own.

• The artistic disciplines for which the bursaries are awarded are Creative Writing, Music and Visual Arts. These three fields cover artistic specialisations that drive the creative industries, in particular the recording industries, the organisation of concerts, the audiovisual sector, graphic design and publishing. The countries of the South, which have a rich artistic tradition, can further expand their skills in these fields, and therefore boosting the different sectors of the cultural industry.
• The Programme strategy is based in UNESCO’s policies to promote creativity and cultural diversity, and so, converges with the goals of the Convention on the Promotion and Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005 Convention)
• The Programme also gives priority to artists and institutions in developing countries, in order to enhance North-South and South-South cooperation.

The Inception of the Programme

• The sale of a château donated to UNESCO by Swedish philanthropists, Mr and Mrs Aschberg, allowed for the creation of the UNESCO-Aschberg Bursary Programme in 1994. At the time, the Programme covered five disciplines.
• Between 1994 and 2007, the Programme awarded 650 bursaries in 149 institutions to laureates from 72 countries.
• In 2007, the Programme was temporarily suspended and was subject to an evaluation aimed at not only to draw synergies with the 2005 Convention but also to optimise its management.

Source: UNESCO