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Youth Flash Newsletter May 2012

Lauren Burke

In this issue of Youth Flash, you will find the following:

Feature Article:

  • UN WOMEN Australia’s Youth Delegates tell us about her work on issues concerning rural women in Australia, and participation in CSW! by Lauren Burke, 2012 Australian youth delegate to CSW.

News from UN offices

Youth in Action

Publications

Featured Article

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Click here to expand contentClick here to collapse content  UN WOMEN Australia’s Youth Delegates tell us about her work on issues concerning rural women in Australia, and participation in CSW! - By Lauren Burke, 2012 Australian youth delegate to CSW.

I was very lucky to be selected as UN Women Australia’s Youth Delegate to the 56th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW56), held at the UN Headquarters in New York for two weeks from February 27th 2012. 

This was the second time that UN Women Australia has included a young woman, with the specific task of representing young Australian women, in their CSW delegation. The process for selection included a written application in which prospective delegates discussed their vision for the role of Youth Delegate, and how they hoped to represent, consult and engage with young Australian women before and after CSW56.
 
I first became involved with UN Women Australia when I was involved in the establishment of the Young UN Women Australia (YUNWA) Canberra Committee, a voluntary organisation initiated by UN Women Australia to provide a vehicle for young women in Australia to become more involved in the fundraising and advocacy efforts for the UN Women Australia National Committee. I then served on the executive of the YUNWA Canberra Committee as Engagement Manager in 2010 and 2011.
 
I have been interested in the area of gender equality for some time. Studying social policy, government and international relations in my undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney inspired my interest in the rights of women and the importance of ensuring that opportunities are available equally for women as they are for men. I strongly believe that women should have the right to make choices about their life – to have a career; to have a family; to have either or both; to follow a religion or not; to choose a partner. Most importantly, whether we are talking about developed or developing countries, women must be supported, and institutional structures need to allow, for women to make genuine choices.
 
This year’s Youth Delegate role was also especially relevant to me, as the priority theme of CSW56 was “the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges”, and I grew up in a rural area of Australia. I am very aware of the fact that women, young women and girls in rural areas often face additional and different challenges to their metropolitan counterparts, and these must be recognised and addressed in order to ensure access to opportunity and wellbeing.
 
Prior to heading to New York, I conducted consultations with young women throughout Australia to give me a better understanding of their key issues of concern, and to inform my representations at CSW56. I was particularly keen to consult with young women in rural areas given the CSW56 priority theme. I set up an online survey to better enable young women in rural areas to contribute to the consultation and I also travelled to some rural centres to talk to young women in those areas directly.
 
The young Australian women in Australia that I spoke to raised three key issues. Firstly, there was significant concern about the continuing incidence of domestic violence. Young women in rural areas were particularly concerned about the difficulties in their trying to access sensitive, culturally appropriate and ‘private’ services when some towns are so small. Secondly, young women throughout Australia continue to feel significant pressure from the media in regards to body image, and many remain confused by the mixed messages regarding dieting, exercise and general health. Finally, young women from rural Australia emphasised the need to ensure that services such as technology, communication or education are not only available but affordable for rural communities.
 
 I was able to share the concerns of young Australian women with other CSW delegates from throughout the world while I was in New York. In particular, the Young Women’s Caucus provided an excellent forum to discuss these matters with other young women, and use the views I had collected to contribute to the drafting of the Young Women’s Caucus oral statement read in the formal session of CSW and the drafting of the Agreed Conclusions.
 
Now that I am back in Australia, I am planning to talk to as many young women as I can about my experience at CSW56. It is very important as we work towards progressing gender equality that we remember that there is a world of women out there who can share stories, learn from one another and empower others. As a first step, I plan to give feedback to all of the women who participated in my consultations about how I represented their contributions and what I learnt from others.
 
 I also want to share some of the amazing and inspirational stories I heard about women - including many young women, from all sorts of backgrounds, from different communities, from all corners of the globe - working for the betterment of women in their communities. This includes in ways that may be considered small and localised, but that are significant for the women that are the beneficiaries. I will also seek to pursue some of the key issues raised by the young women I spoke to in Australia, such as the need for positive image and diet messages in the media, and the need to equip more young women with the skills and support they need to recognise, address and overcome situations of domestic violence.
 
CSW56 was an incredibly inspiring opportunity for me to meet and network with a huge number (approximately 4500!) non-governmental delegates, as well as government officials from Member States who are working to promote gender equality, to learn about the situation for women in other areas of the world, and the successes and challenges that have been experienced. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to attend CSW and see how the important this forum is for women from all over the world to meet, collaborate, discuss issues facing women at a global perspective, and learn from the experiences of others. I was truly inspired by so many individuals at CSW, and I have great hopes for the future given the dedication, motivation and genuine will demonstrated to further the global effort to improve the livelihoods of women everywhere.
 

Youth Flash Newsletter

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Click here to expand contentClick here to collapse content  News from UN Offices

Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development 

The Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development is delighted to inform you of its newest member: UNRWA –the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and Works. UNRWA provides assistance, protection and advocacy for some 5 million registered Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied Palestinian territory, pending a solution to their plight. UNRWA recently held a youth conference (19-20 March 2012) which you can read more about below. 

UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues kicks off! 

The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has kicked off for its eleventh session in UN headquarters, New York, running from 7-18 May. Check out the website for more information on what the forum does as well as how you can attend side events in NY.
http://social.un.org/index/IndigenousPeoples/UNPFIISessions/Eleventh.aspx 

UN Commission on Population and Development 

The UN Commission on Population and Development took place in New York from 23-27 April for its 45th session under the theme ‘Adolescence and Youth’.  Find more information and statements here:http://www.un.org/esa/population/cpd/cpd2012/cpd45.htm

UNRWA

Engaging Youth: Palestine Refugee Youth in a Changing Middle East
On March 19-20 2012, UNRWA convened a conference funded by the EU and hosted in Brussels by the Government of Belgium. “Engaging Youth: Palestine Refugee Youth in a Changing Middle East” saw world leaders and opinion makers, civil society and Palestinian refugee youth come together to discuss their concerns in a frank, open manner. The youth seized the space, making clear that they were more than equal partners in the discussions. There was consensus among host and donor countries, private partners, NGOs and UN agencies on the need to work with and for youth. The event provided new clarity to UNRWA’s programming vision. At the conference’s close, Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi unveiled an agenda of ten commitments. Many of these build on work that the Agency is already doing; others will enhance UNRWA’s ability to incorporate youth views. 

To learn more about UNRWA’s work on youth and the ‘ten commitments’ see below links or contact Liaison Officer, Amira Hassan, email: hassan94@un.org 

http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/2012042914138.pdf
http://www.engagingyouth.eu/index.php 

ESCAP – Economic Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

ESCAP Subregional Office for East and North-East Asia will be organizing its second Subregional Youth Forum in China this year. It is part of the Office's 3-year project to bring youths in direct dialogues with governmental policy-makers so that youth voices are better reflected in national policies. Eligible young people (26 years and younger) based in the 6 countries of North-East Asia are encouraged to apply before 25 May 2012.

Call for Application - Deadline 25 May 2012The 2nd Subregional Forum for Youth Participation in Policy-Making or East and North-East Asia
Dates: 22-24 August 2012
Venue: University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China (UNNC)
Organizers: UN ESCAP Subregional Office for East and North-East Asia, in collaboration with the Model UN Association of UNNC
Purpose:
- Sharing experiences and reviewing good practice of existing collaboration
between youth organizations and policy-making bodies.
- Identifying ways to channel youths’ perspectives to policy-making by
bringing policy makers and representatives of youth organizations together
and discuss strategies for effective collaboration.
We are looking for:Up to 40 youths (26 years old and younger) representing youth organizations in the 6 member States of North-East Asia (China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Republic of Korea and RussianFederation).
 
For more information:
http://northeast-sro.unescap.org/meeting/2012/Youth_Forum.html 

International Labour Organization - ILO 

Youth Employment Forum from 23-25 May 2012, ILO headquarters, 23-25 May, Geneva, Switzerland

The Forum will gather around 150 young people from around the world, who are engaged in promoting decent work for youth. This will provide a platform for young people to share their experiences and views on the current employment situation, as well to discuss successful initiatives that create more and better jobs for youth. The discussions will focus on the youth employment crisis, youth transition to decent work and partnerships for more and better jobs for young people. There will also be a marketplace setup where innovative youth employment initiatives and good practices are shared and discussed. 
Leading up to the Forum, 46 national youth employment events are being organized to discuss the youth employment challenge at country level. The outcome of these results will also be discussed at the Forum in Geneva.

More information on the Youth Forum
http://www.ilo.org/global/meetings-and-events/events/youth-employment-forum/lang--en/index.htm

More information on the national events
http://www.ilo.org/employment/areas/youth-employment/WCMS_176020/lang--en/index.htm

Youth Employment – Good Practices

The ILO Youth Employment Programme has launched a call for nominations of good practices that have proven effective in promoting decent work for young people. All nominations will be evaluated based on 6 specific criteria: (i) relevance, (ii) efficiency, (iii) coherence, (iv) novelty, (v) sustainability and (vi) replicability.The persons in charge of the
top good practice from each region (Africa, Americas, ArabStates, Asia, Europe) will be invited to the ILO Youth Employment Forum taking place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 23 to 25 May 2012. To participate in this call for nominations, you are kindly requested to complete, by 11 May 2012 before 12.00 Pm GMT (a second phase will be launched as of 12 May 2012), an online registration form that can be found on the Good Practices on Youth Employment platform. For further information please visit: http://youthpractices.org

Upcoming Deadline for What’s Working? Competition 

Given the need for more effective youth employment interventions, the Youth Employment Network (YEN) and the ILO's Youth Employment Programme (YEP) have partnered up to create the What's Working? competition to find out what approaches are working, and share them among the youth employment community. The competition is hosted on YEN’s new website, the Marketplace. The What’s Working? competition highlights success stories. Organizations who have had positive results from their youth employment projects can submit an entry. The winning projects will have their project published on the Marketplace and receive a monetary award. The competition is free to enter. Just fill out the online entry form and get your friends and supporters to vote for you! The deadline to enter is May 20th, and voting closes on May 24th at noon. Feel free to visit and explore the website at http://yenmarketplace.org. To see the competition page, go to http://yenmarketplace.org/whats-working-competition.

Youth Employment Network

The Youth Employment Network launches The Marketplace website The Youth Employment Network (YEN) has launched a new website. The Marketplace is an online space where youth employment stakeholders can come to find or exchange innovative ideas, expertise, advice and partnership. YEN Manager Susana Puerto Gonzalez says, “We (at YEN) face continuous requests to broker partnerships, to facilitate information exchange, to provide expertise, and to encourage youth participation. The Marketplace is our answer to these requests and a fun interactive way of exchanging with young people, youth development practitioners, and policymakers.”One of the website’s features is the What’s Working? competition, where members can submit a successful youth employment project for a chance to get their project published and win a cash prize! The deadline to enter is May 25, 2012.

The website also features an online mentorship program for young entrepreneurs, a live webinar series, and a TradingCenter where opportunities are posted daily.

Visit the website at http://yenmarketplace.org.

UNCDF 

YOUTHSTART UNCDF 

YouthStart, a UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) programme funded by The MasterCard Foundation aims to reach 200,000 youth in Sub-Saharan Africa with demand-driven financial services and non-financial services, in particular savings and financial education, by 2014. To date, US$7.2 million have been awarded to 10 Financial Service Providers (FSPs) in 7 different countries, of which US$1.3 have been disbursed,  to design, deliver and scale up demand-driven youth financial services and youth-centric programmes in partnership with Youth Serving Organizations. 

During the first quarter of 2012, the 10 FSPs participating in YouthStart, launched their pilot tests, reached more than 7,000 youth with savings accounts, and provided financial education to more than 2,500. To ensure the financial services offered by the FSPs participating in the programme are protective of the rights of Youth, UNCDF sponsored a training on Youth Client Protection Principles delivered by Reach Global. Finally, UNCDF published its paper “Policy opportunities and constraints to access Youth financial services” and released it at the Child and Youth Finance International Summit in Amsterdam, where the UN Secretary General released a statement in support to programmes like YouthStart.

More information please visit our website at www.uncdf.org/en/youthstart

UNAIDS

Young people present first-ever ‘crowdsourced’ recommendations for AIDS response in UN history 

New youth-led recommendations to shape UNAIDS Secretariat’s work on HIV and young people

On April 24th, youth leaders from around the world presented a set of youth-defined recommendations that will guide the UNAIDS Secretariat’s work on HIV and young people through 2015. Based on the voices and views of more than 5000 young people from 79 countries, the recommendations resulted from CrowdOutAIDS, an innovative youth-led policy project initiated by UNAIDS. Leveraging crowdsourcing technology and new media tools, the five-month project enabled young people to fully participate in the development of strategic recommendations for the UNAIDS Secretariat’s youth agenda.The full set of recommendations are presented in Strategy recommendations for collaborating with a new generation of leaders in the AIDS response—the first-ever “crowdsourced” AIDS-related document in UN history. The recommendations, together with an internal organizational assessment on HIV and young people, will inform the UNAIDS Secretariat’s New Generation Leadership Strategy.

Contact person: Mikaela Hildebrand, hildebrandm@unaids.org

Links

CrowdOutAIDS
Strategy recommendations for collaborating with a new generation of leaders in the AIDS response

World Health Organization - WHO

On April 25, the Lancet published a series of reports on the health of the largest generation of young people in history. Four reports analyse the importance of adolescent health from a life-course perspective; examine how social determinants influence adolescent health; present evidence from prevention trials, and present available data from multi-country datasets on 25 suggested core indicators. Among the authors, leading academicians and practitioners in the field of adolescent health are WHO and UNICEF staff

Contact person: Jane Ferguson, WHO  fergusonj@who.int

Food and Agricultural Organization - FAO

FAO is pleased to announce Debi Nova has been appointed as Ambassador of Youth and United Nations Global Alliance (YUNGA) and joins fellow musicians Anggun, Fanny Lu, Lea Salonga and other celebrities in supporting the United Nations and partners to educate, inspire and promote action of children and young people in undertaking social and environmental initiatives. Debi will begin by working with YUNGA on its biodiversity, forests and oceans initiatives as well as other key activities related to nutrition and hunger.

See more at: http://yunga-youth.weebly.com/debi-nova.html or join YUNGA facebook at: www.facebook.com/people/Yunga-Un/100000379705546 

UN Department of Public Information - DPI

In June, the UN will bring the world together in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to discuss and decide how to accelerate action for a healthier, more equitable and more prosperous world for all. The “Rio+20: The Future We Want” platform invites people around the world to take part in a global conversation to share their hopes, aspirations and ideas on ways to build a future that promotes prosperity and improves people’s lives without  further degrading our planet’s natural  environment. It is up to all of us to build our future, so join the global conversation and tell us what future you want! The contributions will be compiled and turned into a multimedia exhibition to be shown at Rio, on the Internet and then around the world. #futurewewant http://www.un.org/en/sustainablefuture/conversation.shtml

Click here to expand contentClick here to collapse content  Youth in Action

WFUNA 

The World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA) will be holding a youth seminar for their youth network on 8-11 August in New York, New York. All youth members of United Nations Associations (UNAs) affiliated to WFUNA are invited to apply. This youth seminar will train youth on how to implement a youth project on the MDGs in their communities, and requires a draft one-page overview on the project in their application. The training includes sessions on project management, fundraising and proposal writing, and a communications strategy for in-country projects. 

Information and details on the application process are available at http://www.wfuna.org, with a participation fee of USD 120.00. 

For questions on the youth seminar, write to  youthseminar@wfuna.org, or youth@wfuna.org.

Women's Business Group Foundation 

A GANAR Suriname combats youth unemployment

Supported by Partners of the Americas,  the Women’s Business Group Foundation  in Suriname started in January 2012, the A GANAR Suriname program. A Ganar, which means “ to win”, combats the serious problem of youth unemployment, by utilizing soccer and other team sports to help youth, ages 16-24, find jobs, learn entrepreneurial skills, or re-enter the formal education system. The core of this program is the application of sport lessons to personal skill development essential to employment training. To win on the sports field, one needs to understand, practice, and promote the core values of respect, teamwork, discipline, communication, focus on results, and continued self-improvement. These skills form the foundation of the A GANAR methodology, as “employability skills” that are learned on the field and in the classroom. In Suriname sixty youth are being trained in the A GANAR 2012 program. 

Contact: drs.Lilian M. Wiebers: lilianwiebers@gmail.com

MultiKulti Youth Radio - youth voice has a choice!

In Macedonia, the Center for Intercultural Dialogue (CID) in Kumanovo is running a youth radio that is created by multicultural group of youngsters. It is called MultiКулти Youth Radio. It is first bilingual youth radio in Macedonia and one of the kind in Kumanovo. MultiКулти  Youth Radio is part of the MultiКулти  Youth center in Kumanovo, Macedonia that is run by CID. One of the main focuses of CID is to work with intercultural issues. The youth radio is an effective way to bring youngsters from different background together and have their own say. Youth radio project is very strongly addressing intercultural issue, but doing it through music – through something energetic and engaging.

The radio officially started in January 2012. The content is being kept fresh for the listeners – with program of 24 hours a day, 7 days a week something new is provided by every visit.

Connect and enjoy with MultiКулти Youth Radio (http://multikulti.mk/radio/) 

2012 US-China International Youth Festival 

The 2012 US-China International Youth Festival (2nd IYF) will take place at Xian, Beijing and multiple other cities in China between July 1 and 30, 2012. It is an unparallel overseas summer opportunity which cultivates Global Citizenship and provides Service Learning experience for excellent youth from all round the world. There will first be a 3-day Global Development Youth Summit at Xian followed by a 3-week Service Learning at multi-cities. The event initiator and main sponsor organization Education Association for China Tomorrow (EACT), a US 501 (C) (3) non-profit organization, primarily planned to endorse the US Presidential "100,000 Strong" Initiative and the 2011 IYF was officially included in "UN's International Year of Youth" (August 12, 2010 to August 11, 2011). Generous rewards and grants are provided!

For more detailed information, please visit EACT website at eactus.com and also feel free to email to Program Manager Amanda Ding at amanda.ding@eactus.com.

Click here to expand contentClick here to collapse content  Publications

YPARD 

A new study released by the YPARD highlights the skills and competencies required by the new young professional in agricultural development 

YPARD - the Young Professionals’ Platform in Agricultural Research for Development (YPARD) is a network of young professionals active in agricultural development, worldwide.  A recent study has examined the employability of young people in the agricultural sector.  

A revised set of skills is needed by young graduates to address new challenges in agriculture. YPARD has contributed to the debate on change in formal higher agricultural education with the study “Working towards a new generation of Young Professionals in ARD”.  This study focused on tertiary level education, asking young professionals to identify those competencies that they were not adequately provided adequately during their education.  This study differs from previous studies, by focusing on the perspective of young professionals themselves.

UNIDO 

Article: Jobs for Tunisian youth: "We must have a vocation and take risks".http://www.mdgfund.org/story/jobs-tunisian-youth-we-must-have-vocation-and-take-risks

 
 

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