Should every city have an event like this to catlyze the synergy of young professionals?

http://blog.trendctv.com/glamorous-life-blog/2009/04/10/one-week-until-the-big-ygl-event/

There are a lot of young people serving in very senior positions in the Obama administration. Here are three:

Joshua DuBois, 26, Head of White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1877501,00.html

Jon Favreau, 27, Director of Speechwriting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Favreau_(speechwriter)

Chris Hughes, 25, Coordinator for Online Organization of the Obama Campaign
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hughes_(Facebook)

Sure, I'm aware that this "advice" might be published somewhere.

Sure, I'm aware that this "advice" could be used for the Obama-Biden administration staff selection process, which I'm interested in, so I'll go with a first person narrative.

In 2000 I co-founded the Global Youth Action Network, with a dream, much like Obama's platform, of empowering greater youth participation in politics. I believe that when young people are given a voice, a place to stand, or a voice, and are inspired and unencumbered, they are capable of great things. Many have called young people the "world's greatest untapped resource."

My advice to the administration is to set in motion a series of structural and political "opportunities" that open the door for citizens, and especially young people, to "participate" in greater and greater ways.

I helped Brazil develop its national youth policies. One piece of legislation requests that all high schools in the country create environmental councils. Picture students organizing to be stewards of their school, working together to map its carbon footprint and reduce waste. It's inspiring a new generation of environmentalists. Another policy, created by earlier creative legislators, requests that all schools have student unions and elections. They encourage democratic participation early on. Another "innovative" idea, in the laboratory of social technologies, which is Brazil, is the "Participatory Budget." Picture a city setting aside 1% of its annual budget, each year, to projects determined by consensus-inspired, citizen-led decision-making processes. Imagine dozens of young people getting together to determine whether their town should invest in a job training center or a music recording studio. They learn from each other in the process, and realize that "job training" serves a greater community. I saw it happen and that kind of deliberative process created more trust, ensuring that the Job Training Center was very successful, with lots of participation, doing much more than your traditional center could ever do.

Brazil is just one of many countries in the world with innovative social technologies that bring people (especially young) together in new ways. 45 of the 46 countries in the Council of Europe have "National Youth Councils." They provide a platform for young people to engage in the democratic process and deliver their political recommendations to national legislatures. Dozens of countries around the world have "National Youth Service" programs where "conscription" doesn't mean serving the army, but serving communities instead. Malaysia has National Youth Awards which recognize the extraordinary contributions of young people to their communities each year. The honor inspires many to choose community participation over materialism. My friend in Viet Nam runs a radio show where young people talk about their solutions for the country's problems. Another friend manages a Latin American network of young people who read newspapers, identify mis-representations of youth, and youth issues, and then respond by writing editorials and educating journalists. Another friend in the Gambia brings truck loads of city youth into the countryside. They connect with the land, the produce, the origins of their food, and commit themselves to an organic, independent future. The global food security alarms that went off earlier this year were silent in his backyard.

The world has a lot of wisdom and ideas to offer us, here in the USA. Many of these programs don’t cost a penny. All we need is the idea, or the visibility, or the convener, or the wave of the legislative wand. Maybe it's coming?

The Bush administration looked out into the big unknown world with fear and suspicion. This new administration doesn't. I think we should create a Presidential Commission on Youth and Intergenerational Partnership. I'd be happy to share my vision of what it could be… but who's ear do I have? Yours? Email me: jonah@youthlink.org (www.bridgingnetwork.org)

I haven't posted to my own blog for years.

I'm now living in the USA, near Washington, DC. I'm a dad. My son is almost four. I helped build the Leverage Alliance (a network of young philanthropists) and then the Bridging Network (www.bridgingnetwork.org) to consult on young philanthropy.

In July of 2007 I launched www.ezintouch.com to help people with contact management and email marketing and in September of 2007 I became the chief system geek at Distributive Networks (www.distributivenetworks.com) to be part of the team that developed the technology for Obama's text messaging platform.

Oh, I also just helped my Dad launch a bed and breakfast / vacation rental on his farm in Union, WV. Check out www.pynemountainfarm.com

A few months ago the family and I moved to the Washington, DC area. I'm now helping to build the network of the Leverage Alliance. www.leval.org

In May 2003 I re-submitted a proposal to World Economic Forum (I had done the same in Dec 2002) for a debate between youth there in Davos and in India at the World Social Forum (the two events will happen simultaneously in January of 2004). Last week the WEF turned down the proposal. I'm still waiting for a reply as to why - but insiders tell me that it is because the WEF gets approached with interesting proposals all the time and can only pick the best ones for their needs. I believe in this debate idea. How could we convince them that it meets their needs in a big way?

At about a 4:15pm yesterday, we are working at the GYAN office and the lights went out. There was something about the way they went out that was different from any other power loss I've seen. Looking out the window, the building across the way had lost power as well. We all got up and walked down the stairs from our 9th floor to see what was going on. When we got to the street, everyone seemed to be out there already and as I looked to the corner, I could tell that the traffic signal was out. Was the entire city block out? No; actually, for the first time in 26 years, the entire city was out. Only about 15 minutes later did I realize the blackout extended all the way from NYC to Toronto, to Detroit, including most of the Northeastern US and Southern Canada.

All in all, this being the largest blackout in the history of the US (according to news sources), 50 million people were without power for the better part of the next 12 hours, at least. 21 power plants failed and the city - together with a dozen others - spent the hot and muggy night cloaked in darkness. In the city of lights, as its usually known, it was quite a sight to behold.

Honza, Beenash and I walked around, intrigued by the historic moment this represented. People poured onto the streets and streamed as if they were traffic, while traffic itself, cramming the streets, moved barely at all. It was awesome to see ordinary citizens stepping in at intersections to help guide the cars... it's reassuring when people step up in times of crises. It's inspiring and motivating to know that when the great machination of the system fails, that ordinary people become heroes and keep the flow going in what one would imagine would be a chaos too intense to control. But just as interesting was the attitude of people, as intrigued as we were, many standing outside drinking a beer. Those seemed to be selling faster than anything else, so we bought one as well. Long lines formed behind each of the public pay-phones, since cell phones didn't work, as these represented our best way to get in touch with family and friends. Some people placed radios outside and we stood around them, eager to hear the full story of what was going on.

We sat and watched people, talked to others, walked around, tried to get back into our building, which didn't allow us to do for security reasons. So we ventured uptown towards the 59th street bridge, obviously where this massive exodus of workers pouring through the streets was heading. It was the only major pedestrian-enabled way out of this side of the city, since buses were stuck and subways were out. Hundreds of thousands of people throughout the afternoon made their way by foot to the bridge and from there into Queens on their way home. As we began to cross the bridge, it was amazing - dark and packed, cat-calls and stray cars, a river of people where traffic usually goes, all walking together, amazed by the darkness falling heavier around us. Sparse lights peppered the skyline, the city was black, for the most part.

The last time such a thing happened was 1977, when the city went dark for 25 hours. It was the year before I was born, so experiencing this was really exciting at the beginning, and then grew more frustrating as the day went on. The heat at night forced us to open all the windows and sleep sweating, really far hotter than it was outside. The lights didn't come back on until the early hours of the morning, and it was only rolled out methodically (as Con Edison said was required) in parts of the city. The poor people of Detroit may not get power until Sunday. Many parts of this city are still off the grid, and one wonders how it even survives for a moment. It takes events beyond the imagination to stop a city such as this, whether by natural or man-made disaster.

Finally at 3:15pm today, we were sitting outside at a retaurant in a part of the city that had power ("WE HAVE POWER!" proclaimed the blackboard outside), waiting until the part of town our office was lit up, and sure enough the lights came on finally. So back we came, internet service restored shortly thereafter and telephone lines soon, hopefully. We wonder who remains without electricity but find ourselves ever-grateful for having it restored for us! Back to work, and a memorable day this will have been for us all. It will take a while for city to recover for sure, and one of the most baffling parts will be the how much food spoilage will have happened in the past 24 hours. We're going to stay away from meat, fish and dairy products for a few days, I think....

Over 650 cities around the world are holding rallies and marches today against the seemingly impending war. Dozens of cities across the US are seeing people come out in great numbers, putting a message across to the UN, the government and international community: that Americans don't want this war, at least not in our name.

The City of New York only allowed a permit for a rally; no marching. But as 100s of thousands of people take to the streets, it becomes impossible to contain them - nor their desire for peaceful solutions. Dozens of square blocks are packed with people and barricades were constantly coming down as the police are unable to confine them to the sidewalks as planned. Several arrests took place, but this was a peaceful rally by all means and NY has not seen this volume of people take to the streets in... well, forever!

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and singer Peter Seger are just a few of the many people who spoke at today's event. With the stage at 49th Street and 1st Avenue, a sea of faces and people stretch at least up to 59th street, freezing, the crowd chants "What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!" Reports have the crowd being pushed all the way up to the 70s. And 1st Avenue was just one avenue; 2nd and 3rd Avenues served as overflows.

The police force cut off the side streets and easy access to the rally, in an effort to contain the swarms of people that keep coming and do crowd control. The rally started before noon, but streams of placcards made their way from all directions, large groups of people converging on 42nd street and Lexington, even. And streams of police vehicles and mounted horses, busses and riot control forces trying to reinforce the barricades.

What clearer message can there be? War is not the answer. And with millions of people all across the world coming out to join rallies today, what will it take? There are many options that dont resort to violence, but Conflict Resolution 101 says the first step is open communication. But we don't have that; instead confusing and mis-represented messages through the media and political maneuvering that includes everything but a dialogue. Here are some sites for more info, resources, strategies, etc. Make up your own mind about what you want to do, but do something. If everyone did a little, it would be a lot.

The People Speak Out Against War
www.moveon.org
www.unitedforpeace.org
www.internationalanswer.org

Pre-Emptive Democracy for Iraq
http://www.worldcitizen.org

Pictures of Rallies around the world (BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/world_world_peace_protests/html/1.stm

i just recent wrote a proposal for the world economic forum proposing a video dialogue between youth in davos and youth at the world social forum in porto alegre. they responded. it is too late in the game to organize it for this january, but in 2004 it looks like we can do it! this will be a great opportunity to invite the media and bring the voice of youth to the globlization debate.

There are new ones beginning all of the time:

I just found two more today by surfing the net for "global youth"

The UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention
http://www.undcp.org/global_youth_network.html

The World Conservation Union's Global Youth Reporters Programme
http://www.iucn.org/info_and_news/gyrp/

World Youth Organization on Climate Change
http://www.wyocc.org/

I've listed a bunch at the bottom of this page:
http://www.youthmovements.org/analysis.htm

... more to come ...

Want to see a list of articles and links researching/considering what is happening
to youth around the world and why youth should be involved in decision-making/democracy?

Please add links.

1.
My private set of links http://www.youthmovements.org/articles

2. Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development, "Rejecting the Isolation of Youth--Adults and Organizations Dramatically Benefit"(Preview of article from the Nonprofit Quarterly, Winter 2001). Historically adults and programs excluded young people in program development and decision-making. In the 1990's, people recognized and data indicated that this practice had negative consequences and leaders of all ages began to transform their daily activities and programs. The results have been enormously positive and have powerful implications for many organizations and the sector as a whole. Click here: http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/youth/rejectingisolation.php

3.
http://www.freechild.org/youth_involvement_main_page.htm
Welcome to The Freechild Project's SIYI. Around the world, there is a powerful movement that gains more momentum every year, and it is called youth involvement. Youth involvement seeks to include the voice of youth throughout society, in communities, governments, and organizations. Through the SIYI I am studying the implications, impacts, and outcomes of youth involvement. Here are some of the resources I have identified in that study. For more information on the SIYI contact info@freechild.org.

4.
http://www.atTheTable.org
Visit At The Table for massive information about youth involvement throughout the U.S., and ideas on how to get youth involved in your area.

5.
Nonprofit Quarterly Editors, "Hampton, Virginia: A City-wide Enabling Environment," (Preview of an article from the Nonprofit Quarterly, Winter 2001). This article highlights not only how one community came to understand the convergence between community health and youth development but also provides some practical suggestions for creating an environment for enabling youth and young adult participation. Click here: http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/youth/citywide.php

I want to see a comprehensive list of links to International youth funding opportunities. I get asked this question all the time and have too little experience with fundraising to give it an adequate answer. There are so many great resources but no primary linker of them. I think TIG will become that. Here are a few to start:

1)

New Publication Links Youth Organizations to Funding Opportunities The Office of Youth Services' "Sources of Funding for Youth Services" provides a comprehensive and up-to-date look at organizations funding youth services, including opportunities in health care, substance abuse and
technology. Tips on proposal writing are also included.

2)

http://www.doleta.gov/youth_services/maps-founding.asp

The Council of Europe has established special funds providing financial assistance for international youth activities:

http://www.coe.fr/youth/english/EYF/funding.htm

3) Here is a web guide to youth fundraising resources created by YouthActionNet.org which is a project of the International Youth Foundation

http://www.youthactionnet.org/files.fcgi/604_resource_guide.pdf

4) The Africa Youth Foundation, in Germany!??

http://www.ayf.org

5) Applying online:

TIG's ideafund: http://www.ideafund.org

GYAN's awards: http://www.takingitglobal.org/action/yiaa.html

Be the Change $: http://www.peacechild.org/bethechange/default.asp

6) I think the two largest youth funders in the USA are the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts

http://www.pewtrusts.org
http://www.wkkf.org

What more?

www.youngPress.org is an initiative to bring together youth media groups around the world. OneWorld has dome something similar to this for the global NGO community and they just got a big win:

Source: www.comminit.com
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/wl/oneworld/
Promoting Sustainable Development and Southern Voices Online
November 1 2001, iConnect online. OneWorld International has launched a daily news service on Yahoo! News. The sources for the stories and links are NGOs. OneWorld aims to increase the visibility of its 1000 partner organisations, particularly those from the South. It is the first daily non-profit world news syndication on a major corporate Web portal. The news service focuses on events relating to human rights, world poverty, social justice, the environment and sustainable development.

Here are two interesting articles on the future of journalism. I like 'em. Any others? -Jonah

on web logs
http://www.paulandrews.com/stories/storyReader$122

on open publishing and democratic media
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~matthewa/catk/openpub.txt

Both of them show me that swarms of internet users (probably mostly youth) will create new, open, demcratic media alternatives - mostly via the net, and could perhaps break a media monopoly and traditional power structures. I'm not subversive - the movement is...

The event we organized turned out to be a wonderful learning experience! I cannot say it was hugely successful, but I was very pleased to have pulled it off in less than 3 days.

We had about 100 people show up, maybe 30 signs and lots of flyers, which we were not allowed to distribute anyway.

The police gave us a hard time, first telling us to move to the other corner (which we refused to do). We stood ground and said that we had a right to be there. The police also said we could not hold up our signs, which I challenged them on. They called in another 20 officers or so, warning that we must move or face possible arrest, but when the other officers arrived, they could not find legal grounds by which we could not be there or hold up our signs - simply that the signs could not be attached to sticks (which they weren't). I am proud that they were not able to remove us, but they hassled us for a good half hour (much of it caught by the reporters, who they hassled, too) and our signs were down for about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, we lost about half of the crowd as a result.

Because of our presence, the show stopped cutting down to the sidewalk (a tradition, which happens throughout the show every time, and the reason why we chose that location). So in terms of that angle, being on in the background of the show, it was not a big success and I'm not sure we could be seen at all.

I had notified the host of the show, Carson Daly, and invited him to come down - although he didn't, he did flash us a peace sign from the window on the 2nd floor, likely off-camera, but at the very least acknowledging that we were there.

Perhaps the most successful part of the event was the media turnout, though of course no mainstream coverage. Those who showed up included Bloomberg radio, PBS - In the Mix, FreespeechTV, the Independent Media Center, a Japanese show on one of the biggest channels in Japan (they will air a show later this month and did some interviews with us the day before), a photographer working on a series that will be shopped to some major magazines and at least 5 freelancers, documentary-makers, etc.

This was a testing the waters kind of thing, because of the time factor. We learned a lot and had a good experience. We have yet to debrief fully and measure the impact, although I don't think we'll find much more on top of what I described here.

My hope is to this next week launch the Don't Buy This World Campaign, focusing on young people leveraging their economic influence in an effort to be heard. Please look at the discussion posts on that topic and add your thoughts. The feedback I'm getting is great, but not so sure it'll fly with the mainstream "apathetic" youth quite yet. The trick will be to create a simple and solid message, with a core base of support within the activist community, to bring the message mainstream, which will then hopefully inspire those labeled in apathy to join up.

I hope the International Youth Declaration continues to gain support, co-signing organizations and recognition, but believe that we must take more concerted steps if we are going to see any real change in the direction we're heading.