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CELEBRATE YOUTH!
BECOMING POSITIVE CHANGE MAKERS
UNESCO Asian Youth Forum on "Reshaping Our Future: In Search of Asian Alternatives" held in South Korea
The 3rd UNESCO Asian Youth Forum has gathered 50 young people from 21 countries in Gwangju in Republic of Korea from July 2-7, 2009 and discussed on "Reshaping Our Future: In Search of Asian Alternatives".
Indian Committee of Youth Organizations (ICYO) represented the India. Ms Manasi Shivakumar from Banglore attended the event.
The Forum adopted the 'Resolution and Pan of Action' (Gwangju Resolution). This forum was the only regional youth forum held this year, will be presenting this resolution and plan of action in forthcoming 6th UNESCO Youth Forum (international) to be held in Paris, France in October, 2009.
The participants of the 3rd UNESCO Asian Youth Forum, want to reshape our future. The need for reshaping comes from our realisation that the potential of local communities, in which our hope lies, has faded away due to the forces of globalization in the last couple of decades. In the face of cyclical economic crises and the continuing decrease in human values, Asian youth are losing their identities and dreams that inspire them to build the future in which we want to live.
The participants of the 3rd UNESCO Asian Youth Forum want to search for Asian alternatives based on positive local traditions and wisdom that have enriched the people of this region for thousands of years.
The participants of the 3rd UNESCO Asian Youth Forum adopted the resolution based on discussions, shared learning and mutual understanding. The discussion was focus on three themes: EQUIP, ENHANCE and EMPOWER.
Gwangju Resolution
Theme 1: EQUIP
"EQUIP ASIAN YOUTH TO BE FUTURE POSITIVE CHANGE MAKERS"
Action Plan
1. Conduct lectures on "Youth and Social Responsibility"
2. Cooperate with Parent-Teacher Associations to provide training to teach the community to be self-sufficient
3. Provide traditional knowledge training
4. Organise local cultural trips to promote youth realisation of the importance of their traditions
5. Establish talking forums as platforms for young people to discuss issues
6. Build partnerships with the media section to encourage young people to have social responsibility
Introduce social entrepreneurship at the community level
7. Conduct study visits for youth to meet with local government to identify problems and solutions together
Theme 2: "ENHANCE YOUTH PARTICIPATION FOR ENRICHING ASIAN VALUES"
Action plan
1. Organize youth-led activities in favour of positive local traditions
2. Provide opportunities and open events to share local youth's learning, experience and activities to join in the local community
3. Create and elaborate ideas to enhance the awareness of Asian local traditions and virtues in the perspective of youth
Theme 3: EMPOWER
"EMPOWER YOUTH TO GET THEIR VOICE HEARD"
Action plan
1. Organize youth in the community with a bottom-up approach
2. Provide an equal platform for marginalized communities and ensure inclusiveness
3. Create a platform for local youth groups and local decision makers to engage in a dialogue
4. Utilize different forms of media to provide alternative platforms for the youth in the community to raise local youth issues
5. Seek government assistance and support for the youth voice to be heard at different levels of governance and enable youth voice to feed into larger policy and program formulation
Youth Information is published by
Indian Committee of Youth Organizations (ICYO)
Calling Young Indians: Think, Evolve, Innovate… and come up with great ideas for achieving MDGs
For inspiration read Peter Drucker 'On Innovation'
"There are innovators who are 'kissed by the Muses,' and whose innovations are the result of a 'flash of genius' rather than of hard, organized, purposeful work. But such innovations cannot be replicated. They cannot be taught and they cannot be learned. ...
"But also, contrary to popular belief in the romance of invention and innovation, 'flashes of genius' are uncommonly rare. What is worse, I know of not one such 'flash of genius' that turned into an innovation. They all remained brilliant ideas.
"The purposeful work of innovation resulting from analysis, system, and hard work is all that can be discussed and presented as the practice of innovation. ... And the extraordinary performer in innovation, as in every other area, will be effective only if grounded in the discipline and mastery of it.
"Purposeful, systematic innovation begins with the analysis of ... the seven sources of opportunity: ... [which are] the organization's own unexpected successes and failures ... incongruities ... process needs ... changes in market structures ... changes in demographics ... changes in meaning and perception ... [and] new knowledge. All sources of innovative opportunity should be systematically analyzed and studied. It is not enough to be alerted to them. ...
"An innovation, to be effective, has to be simple and it has to be focused. It should do only one thing; otherwise it confuses. If it is not simple, it won't work. ... All effective innovations are breathtakingly simple. Indeed, the greatest praise an innovation can receive is for people to say, 'This is obvious. Why didn't I think of it?' "
DID YOU KNOW?
Most Populous Countries, 2009 and 2050
Youth
About one in five people, over 1.2 billion people, are between the ages of 15 and 24. The United Nations estimates the world's median age to be 28.9. By 2050, it is projected to be 38.4.
Although the world is aging, the proportion of the population between 15 and 24 in LDCs will continue to be higher than in MDCs. In 2005, young people represented 13.7 percent of the MDCs' population, 166 million. That share is expected to drop to 10.5 percent by 2050. The vast majority of the world's youth, 1.1 billion, are in LDCs. Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's most youthful population and is projected to stay that way for decades.
Most developing countries have young populations because of high fertility and improvements in child survival. But as fertility rates decline and young populations grow older in many LDCs, a bulge in the working-age population with fewer children and elderly to support may provide benefits. This "demographic dividend" can bring improvements in society by allowing more investments in education, technology, and skills to support a growing economy; encourage more targeted investment in health care; and increase economic output because more people are working.
With the right investments in health, education, rural agricultural development, entrepreneurship, and training, a large youth population can be an opportunity for development and economic growth. However, without educational opportunities and a strong economy with healthy labor markets, the youth bulge can be problematic. The lack of job opportunities for youth in many countries breeds frustration. Recent unrest in Greece, Iran, France, and China has all been at least partly due to a lack of opportunities for young people. Some youth with few job prospects and little hope of future advancement may resort to criminal activities or join one side or another of armed conflicts.
- Population Reference Bureau
http://www.prb.org/Publications/PopulationBulletins/2009/worldpopulationhighlights2009.aspx
International Youth Day
12 August, 2009
SUSTAINABILITY: Our Challenge. Our Future.
The theme of this year's International Youth Day - "Sustainability: Our Challenge. Our Future" - is a global call to action for young men and women.
Our world faces multiple, interconnected crises with severe and far-reaching impacts that fall disproportionately on the young.
In 2007, for example, youth comprised 25 per cent of the world's working age population yet accounted for 40 per cent of the unemployed. The global economic downturn means that, in the near term, youth unemployment will continue to climb. Unemployment rates tell only part of the story, especially for the vast majority of youth who live in developing countries. For them, informal, insecure and low-wage employment is the norm, not the exception.
Climate change, meanwhile, continues to compromise economies and threaten tremendous upheaval, saddling young people everywhere with an unjust "ecological debt". This is a potentially crushing burden. At the same time, I am encouraged by the contributions that young people have made to the debate on climate change mitigation and adaptation. Their views and proposals can help build the momentum necessary to "seal the deal" in Copenhagen later this year.
Indeed, young people have proven themselves to be key partners in sustainable development. They have gotten involved in international forums such as the Commission on Sustainable Development, and have helped their Governments and communities to formulate poverty reduction strategies, entrepreneurial schemes and many other policies and initiatives.
Young people often lead by example: practicing green and healthy lifestyles, or promoting innovative uses of new technologies, such as mobile devices and on-line social networks. They deserve our full commitment -- full access to education, adequate healthcare, employment opportunities, financial services and full participation in public life. On International Youth Day, let us renew our pledge to support young people in their development. Sustainability is the most promising path forward, and youth can lead the way.
Marking the Day
International Youth Day at United Nations Headquarters
Youth Showcase Their Answers to the Challenge
Youth gathered together at United Nations headquarters in New York (UNHQ) to share their solutions to the challenge of sustainability.
In commemoration of International Youth Day 2009, the United Nations Programme on Youth in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs worked together with the United Nations Department of Public Information and Discovery Education to host a showcase at UNHQ. The showcase featured three students who worked with their teacher as "Team Dead Weight", to win the " We Can Change the World Challenge". Also part of the showcase was Jonathan Hiles of the youth network of the United Nations Environment Programme Regional Office of North America, who presented his work, and the work of his network in promoting student-led education in climate change and sustainable development. Members of the youth programme, Directions for our Youth, also took the stage, showing their use of creative expression in advocating that youth take on the challenge of sustainability.
Youth present at the showcase also heard how other sectors of society plan to help them take on the challenge. Representatives of the Discovery Education shared their youth-focused initiatives, and statements were be made by representatives of the Permanent Mission of the United States and of the United Nations.
For more information on the event, please contact the United Nations Programme on Youth at youth@un.org. Click here to see a webcast of the full event. A shorter version is also available on YouTube.
Sustainability Through Youth Lenses
In commemoration of International Youth Day 2009, the United Nations Programme on Youth, in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, partnered with the Shoot Nations global photography competition to host a photo exhibition at headquarters in New York.
The exhibition runs 4-14 August, 2009 and features 50 photographs that explore the challenge of sustainability in the modern age, through the varied lenses of young women and young men around the world. They show how each gender experiences economic, environmental and social life, and display varied reflections on the challenges ahead.
Shoot Nations is the result of a partnership between Plan, an international children's charity,and Shoot Experience, an experiential photography organisation. Shoot Nations is a participatory global project for young people between the ages of 11 and 25, and utilizes photography as a medium for cross-cultural communication. For young people without a camera or access to the internet, drawings were accepted via the Plan network of country offices.
For more information, please contact the United Nations Programme on Youth at youth@un.org.
International Youth Day statement by Mr Kamalesh Sharma, Commonwealth Secretary-General
Young people are not just the most valuable resource of the Commonwealth - they make up half of its 2 billion population
They are a source of talent, knowledge, ideas, energy and hope - for communities, for countries, for humanity. They are agents of change and transformation. They make up 25 per cent of the global working-age population, and yet they account for 44 per cent of the global unemployed. Almost every other jobless person in the world is between the ages of 15 and 24.
This year's International Youth Day is focused on Sustainability: Our Challenge, Our Future. Young people are central to the way we will respond to the social, economic and environmental challenges of 'sustainability' - but first must come a sustainable response to young people themselves. Those who have gone before them - and whose painful legacy they now inherit - must find a way to support young people in fulfilling their dreams, to give to life and take from it. Poverty, poor education, ill-health, conflict, and marginalisation are too common as obstacles to young people. Perhaps the greatest thing we can achieve for young people is to trust them sufficiently with money. Young people are entrepreneurial: they wish to be job creators, not only job takers. The best that our governments and our financial institutions can do is to trust and empower them, and give them wings. In hard times especially, I call on the suppliers of micro-finance not to retrench with young people, but to double their efforts to support them.
The Commonwealth values the contributions young people can make to enhance the lives of all citizens. Its 35-year-old Commonwealth Youth Programme is the sole intergovernmental organisation devoted to young people, in building the capacity of governments to address youth issues, while enhancing young people's skills in relation to youth development work, entrepreneurship and income generation. We are proud of the ground-breaking work of our four regional CYP offices (Caribbean, Asia, Africa, Pacific), as centres of excellence in youth-led research and information sharing, youth work education and training, governance of national youth bodies, HIV/AIDS and conflict resolution.
Yet still we can do more. We can continue to work with national governments to develop national youth policies which bring a youth element - and budget - into every government department, and every government decision. And we can continue to support youth enterprise by scaling up our own successful Commonwealth Youth Credit Initiative turned into something bigger and more sustainable - with the active involvement of governments, regional organisations, international financing institutions, and business large and small, local and international. Our Heads of Government will discuss this issue when they meet in Port of Spain in November.
This year, the Commonwealth's 60th anniversary, is dedicated to young people. Our theme is thecommonwealth@60 - Serving a New Generation. We will continue to be true to our word.
Youth Information is published by
Indian Committee of Youth Organizations (ICYO)
194-A, Arjun Nagar, Safdarjang Enclave
New Delhi 110029, India
Phone: 91 9811729093 / 91 11 26183978 Fax 91 11 26198423
Email: icyoindia@gmail.com / icyo@icyo-india.org
Web: www.icyo.in
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