From now on, once a week we'll be doing a round-up of what's going on in youth action around the world since this is directly connected with what we do at YPWC. Here's our first post.
Here is an excerpt:
“Welcome to the Afghan Youth Voices Festival, the first youth media festival in Afghanistan. The Festival will provide an opportunity for the country’s youth to express their ideas and dreams about their future through the media.
The festival will empower the next generation of leaders to discover the power of their creativity and learn to express their voices through different mediums including radio, television, the internet, blogging, photography, posters, art and music. If you are a young person (aged 15 to 24) you will have access to training, grants and there's a competition with special prizes. So we invite you to expresses your big idea.”
The blog Political Flirt just published an article about youth empowerment in the Niger Delta entitled Political Process Urban Youth Development in Niger Delta 41. The post discussed the number of young people not enrolled to vote in Nigeria, putting the figure at around 20 million young people (or just less than the entire population of Ghana)! It also mentioned that many of those youth do not have birth certificate. The point of the article is to raise awareness about the disempowered youth. The latter part of the article raises strategies that could be employed to overcome the youth problems in Nigeria. Here is an excerpt:
“20 million youth aged 18 and above have no Identity cards automatically eliminating them from the voting process.
A significant number of them have no birth certificates therefore they do not exist.
Majority (34.3%) of the youth who have votes are apathetic to the whole process. They feel their voting would not make a different.
“Welcome to the Afghan Youth Voices Festival, the first youth media festival in Afghanistan. The Festival will provide an opportunity for the country’s youth to express their ideas and dreams about their future through the media.
The festival will empower the next generation of leaders to discover the power of their creativity and learn to express their voices through different mediums including radio, television, the internet, blogging, photography, posters, art and music. If you are a young person (aged 15 to 24) you will have access to training, grants and there's a competition with special prizes. So we invite you to expresses your big idea.”
The blog Political Flirt just published an article about youth empowerment in the Niger Delta entitled Political Process Urban Youth Development in Niger Delta 41. The post discussed the number of young people not enrolled to vote in Nigeria, putting the figure at around 20 million young people (or just less than the entire population of Ghana)! It also mentioned that many of those youth do not have birth certificate. The point of the article is to raise awareness about the disempowered youth. The latter part of the article raises strategies that could be employed to overcome the youth problems in Nigeria. Here is an excerpt:
“20 million youth aged 18 and above have no Identity cards automatically eliminating them from the voting process.
A significant number of them have no birth certificates therefore they do not exist.
Majority (34.3%) of the youth who have votes are apathetic to the whole process. They feel their voting would not make a different.
For the youth that vote, majority (32 million) vote for the wrong reasons such as: electing leaders from their ethnic groups even though they do not merit, electing those who have dished out the most money, peer pressure and often pressure from one’s family to vote for particular leader as a block.”
On the other side of the world, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition
have been busy writing letters to their elected officials, including the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Kevin Rudd, about climate change concerns affecting their environment.
In their most recent blog post, they profiled a year 10 (4th year of high school) student named Jarrah Gosbell about his decision to join the coalition and how he's taking action. Here's an excerpt:
“In year 10 at school, Jarrah hasn’t had any local climate action groups to be involved with. Instead, he’s just had the never-ending view of coal ships coming in to Australia’s largest coal port, Newcastle, to load up and head off to China. The sight of those ships, and the knowledge that the amazing Great Barrier Reef is deteriorating as a direct result of our huge fossil fuel consumption, was too much for Jarrah to take.
Jarrah found the AYCC through online searches and also the advert we ran on Channel 10 calling on world leaders to take action. But before he found the AYCC he was already taking action. In 2008, Jarrah embarked on an ambitious campaign to write hundreds of letters to politicians with his views on how inadequate their climate decision were. He said he got started with some auto-generated ones, but took the idea and ran with it.”
Meanwhile in India, the Indian Youth Climate Network held a conference in March this year to try to find solutions to the rapid climate change taking place in their beautiful Kashmir region:
“The Kashmir valley, often known as Paradise on Earth, is famous for its beautiful mountainous landscape; in recent years though, Kashmir's environment is undergoing rapid change and pollution. These changes are happening due to various reasons such as deforestation andmelting glaciers combined with depleting snow cover. These lead to shrinking water supply and shrinking water bodies and wetlands, soil degradation, etc.”
And during June the Philippine Youth Climate Movement will actively participate in Philippine Environment Month during which a range of activities to heighten environmental awareness and find solutions to evnironmental problems are planned across the country.
Here is an excerpt about the Philippine Youth Climate Movement:
“WHAT is PhilYCM?
Philippine Youth Climate Movement is an environmental youth network that unites and mobilizes Filipino youth towards environmental activism and responsiveness.Our goal is to mobilize youth all over the Philippines to take action on Climate Change.
VISION
We envision a country where Filipino Youth is in the forefront of nation-building to take action on Climate Change.We work in close cooperation with the global youth climate movement to empower Filipino youth and take their voices into decision making platforms.”
Finally, in January 2010 the blog Conversations for a Better World published a post about a UN report that collected the voices of 1700 children living in conflict. Here's an excerpt from the post describing the report:
“Will You Listen, the companion to a United Nations report on the impact of armed conflict on children, is a compilation of the views of over 1,700 children and young people in more than 92 countries. Their thoughts, beliefs, and ideas were collected through focus group discussions and questionnaires and reflect what young people living in humanitarian crises have experienced.”
“The Kashmir valley, often known as Paradise on Earth, is famous for its beautiful mountainous landscape; in recent years though, Kashmir's environment is undergoing rapid change and pollution. These changes are happening due to various reasons such as deforestation andmelting glaciers combined with depleting snow cover. These lead to shrinking water supply and shrinking water bodies and wetlands, soil degradation, etc.”
And during June the Philippine Youth Climate Movement will actively participate in Philippine Environment Month during which a range of activities to heighten environmental awareness and find solutions to evnironmental problems are planned across the country.
Here is an excerpt about the Philippine Youth Climate Movement:
“WHAT is PhilYCM?
Philippine Youth Climate Movement is an environmental youth network that unites and mobilizes Filipino youth towards environmental activism and responsiveness.Our goal is to mobilize youth all over the Philippines to take action on Climate Change.
VISION
We envision a country where Filipino Youth is in the forefront of nation-building to take action on Climate Change.We work in close cooperation with the global youth climate movement to empower Filipino youth and take their voices into decision making platforms.”
Finally, in January 2010 the blog Conversations for a Better World published a post about a UN report that collected the voices of 1700 children living in conflict. Here's an excerpt from the post describing the report:
“Will You Listen, the companion to a United Nations report on the impact of armed conflict on children, is a compilation of the views of over 1,700 children and young people in more than 92 countries. Their thoughts, beliefs, and ideas were collected through focus group discussions and questionnaires and reflect what young people living in humanitarian crises have experienced.”
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