| De: |
"Michael Klein" [ Profil ] |
| Sujet: |
Youth Participation
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| Envoyé: |
Jul 13th, 2007 - 15:30:32 |
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In light of Mr. Lundberg's self-described apostasy in standing apart on
mandatory youth participation, I would maintain that he has a point. I don't
expect to see everyone involved in the global poverty relief effort because
everyone has a given set of issues to which they devote their time, energy
and resources. Global poverty relief might not even enter into the personal
agendas of youth who may be captured by school, sports, local community
actvities and other personal interests.
I believe participation is different than awareness. We must do our best as
the interested parties in making all *aware *of the issues in global poverty
alleviation because they must be heard first to be internalized and decided
upon. But, participation cannot be demanded of all because people may just
have other priorities they feel warrant their time.
The issue of "youth" in the first place disturbs me a bit. What does that
mean? We use the term so nonchalantly, but this term could encompass various
classes of people and age ranges. Is it age of responsibility? Is it
inclusive of ages 1-30 or 18-25? The point I am making is that we shouldn't
isolate the youth movement and participation from movements with other age
groups. One region's idea of youth partnerships might differ from another
and I feel that what we now view as youth can learn much from working with
the older generations. So, definitely stress the advantages of a youth
movement, but don't exclude older generations from working with that concept
and alongside it.
Youth participation, for me, means a commitment. A commitment may be time,
money, or other resources which are dedicated to a cause. Someone who
donates one time to the cause and who neglects it thereafter I don't believe
is a participant because he or she is committed only to a one-time event and
not the cause itself. To remain committed, a participant should at least be
actively aware of the issues and decide that they desire to contribute to
the cause over the long term. Development is long-term and those that give
once and walk away are committed to other things-- there is nothing wrong
with this, but we must focus on building committed participants, not just
short-term contributors.
Participation is good and is not just a waste when it is in these terms
described above. By building long-term, committed individuals to development
causes there arises the potential for ideas. The longer individuals work in
a cause the more familiar with it they become and more innovation occurs.
Transfer of monetary resources is by no means unimportant as funds are put
into the hands of experts who can use them more wisely than the charitable
donor, but more committed participants means more ideas and innovation by
nature.
Here's another issue: what are we talking about here?!! We are talking about
youth and participation, but participation in what? Making the world a
better place? Well, maybe. We need to define our topic and target audience
here so people can decide informatively on committing time and resources to
it. International development is a keen title, but what would this include?
I would use this title and say that it is a commitment to raising standard
of living globally.
These are my thoughts in this area, please comment on them because I may be
wrong here.
Michael Klein
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