"I am a city Changer"

I'm a City Changer is a global movement to share and spread individual, corporate and public initiatives that improve our cities.

I'm a City Changer is a worldwide campaign with the aim of sensitizing and creating awareness among citizens on urban issues to achieve better cities.

EXPLORING INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

There is no accepted definition for Intercultural Dialogue. 

The term is an adaptation from other terms, all of which remain current, such as multiculturalism, social cohesion and assimilation. The best formulation at the moment is perhaps the terminology used by the Council of Europe in its White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue, which states:

‘Intercultural Dialogue is understood as an open and respectful exchange of views between individuals and groups with different ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic backgrounds and heritage’. 

Note that this definition is wide enough to encompass almost all kinds of exchange between culturally distinct groups and individuals while setting down no priorities with regard to any of them. 

Have young people given up the fight?

An economic crisis. Climate crisis. Resource crisis. Unemployment crisis. Poverty crisis. Ecosystem crisis. Energy crisis. Food crisis. Democratic crisis. Values crisis. Social crisis.

No matter what the particularly interest is, everyone can agree we’re in a crisis one way or another. Once again words of global crises echoed around the imposing SulAmerica Conference Centre in Rio at the Youth Blast by speakers and young people from around the world.

But while the reminder of our impending doom, social destruction, economic collapse and environmental suicide can be inspiring to some and help people feel they are not alone as we stare into the abyss, mutual recognition of our problems is not solving them.

KEY COMPETENCES FOR LIFELONG LEARNING

European Reference Framework

As globalization continues to confront the European Union with new challenges, each citizen will need a wide range of key competences to adapt flexibly to a rapidly changing and highly interconnected world. Education in its dual role,  both social and economic, has a key role to play in ensuring that Europe’s citizens acquire the key competences needed to enable them to adapt flexibly to such changes.



In particular, building on diverse individual competences, the differing needs of learners should be met by ensuring equality and access for those groups who, due to educational disadvantages caused by personal, social, cultural or economic circumstances, need particular support to fulfill their educational potential. Examples of such groups include people with low basic skills, in particular with low literacy, early school-leavers, the long-term unemployed and those returning to work after a period of extended leave, older people, migrants, and people with disabilities.

A POWERFUL ANTI-BULLYING MESSAGE

Originally posted: http://www.voicesofyouth.org

Non-Formal Education helps employability of young people, research finds

Among the six soft skills mostly demanded by employers, five are also among those developed through involvement in youth organisations: communication, team work, decision-making, organisational skills and self-confidence.

A study by the European Youth Forum in cooperation with the University of Bath and GHK Consulting on “The impact of Non‐Formal Education in Youth Organisations on Young people’s Employability” will be presented tomorrow in Brussels at the European Economic and Social Committee, from 9am to 1pm.

Through consultation with 245 youth organisations, a survey with over 1,300 young people and focus groups with employers from across Europe this research assesses whether the competences and skills obtained through non-formal education in youth organisations contribute to the employability of young people.

Non-formal Education

What is Non-Formal Education?

The European Youth Forum works with a holistic view of Life long learning, understanding that all education builds on previous learning and all educators are de-facto collaborators. In this holistic view there are three different fields of education;

formal education is typically provided by formal education institutions and is sequentially and hierarchically structured leading to certification;

nonformal education is an organised educational process which takes place alongside the mainstream systems of education and training and does not typically lead to certification. Individuals participate on a voluntary basis and as a result, the individual takes an active role in the learning process. 

Have a moment think what you really are and who you gonna be before make decisions.

Source: www.loveyouthfuture.eu

Originally posted by:  RUOCHEN WANG

If Star Wars Was Written By Environmentalists…

In 2006, Derrick Jensen addressed a peak oil conference called “Community Solutions” in New York. There he told the story of the original Star Wars, written by environmentalists. A comedy spoof of course, his video nonetheless makes some serious points about the environmental movement. Jensen suggests the environmental movement is fractious and unable to work together, using clichéd and pointless tactics like sending “wave after wave of loving kindness”. 

/environment has asked two members of the environmental movement for their response.

• Dan Glass is a renowned environmental activist, probably best known for supergluing himself to Gordon Brown in 2008.
• Luke Kemp is an PhD candidate at the Australian National University, writing a thesis on institutional reform of international environmental governance.

Let’s be honest: we’re failing to deliver change.

This article is cross posted from the main youthpolicy.org website.

Y20, a three-day youth summit ahead of the June G20 in Mexico, was yet another opportunity for the voice of young people to be ignored. The unrepresentative final communiqué is likely to have no impact on policy or the lives of young people. We need to stop our amateurish approach to young people’s voice and influence in global decision-making and get real. We’re letting young people down by our compla­cency and ineffectiveness, and we must do better.

The G20, held in June in the sunny Mexican island of Los Cabos, was yet another opportunity for the voice of young people to be ignored by the world’s leaders.

Before the meeting of the 20 biggest economies, the Government of Mexico hosted Y20 to give young people the “opportunity to actively participate and become involved in different discussions” and “provide a venue for their voices to be heard on the issues of the G20 agenda.”

In crisis: Youth Participation & Global Governance

/participation hosts a new conversation on the participation of young people at international summits and on the breakdown in global governance as the vehicle for achieving change. Whether it is the inertia of international institutions, outdated civil society organisations, disillusioned youth or weak political will, the failure to agree solutions to problems echoes through conference centres around the world.   

Global governance breakdown
Global governance, with its outmoded systems and archaic processes for multilateral decision making, is now woefully unable to take decisions on global issues, civil conflicts, economic endurance or sustainable development.

“A crisis that’s severe enough will help to overcome social and political inertia.

– The key question is then: is the global governance crisis severe enough for civil society to successfully redefine it?”

The inability to act only weakens people’s trust and belief in global institutions. Formalised, bureaucratic institutions are disconnected from people’s lives and it is through the mass mobilisation of citizens around the world that we now see radical change achieved and celebrated.

“There is nothing they fear more than a registered voter with a grievance”

Institutions don’t change the world, incentives change the world. The policy failures which underlie Europe’s scandalous youth employment rates are less to do with the governance of the European Union and more to do with the electoral incentives set by the gulf in turn-out between younger and older voters. Public resources flow up Europe’s age ladder because our young people don’t turn out in large enough numbers to make their interests a political priority, meaning that everything from climate change to the cost of private rented accommodation gets pushed to the bottom of the list.

The United States, by contrast, shows what can happen to the policy process when young people access the political one. It isn’t an accident that student finance was a 2012 electoral battleground: Rock the Vote have calculated that 80 electoral college votes were determined by the 12,000 Millennials turning 18 each day. In his post-defeat call with campaign donors, Mitt Romney put his loss down to the “gifts” the President had bestowed on growing demographics, totally misunderstanding that reaping an electoral dividend from changing the lives of millions of people is exactly how this democracy gig is supposed to work.

Electoral politics is slow and hard and often boring, but Europe’s young people simply can’t reverse the coordinated austerity which is costing them their futures without it. No matter how afraid our leaders are of the press barons and the bond markets, there is nothing they fear more than a registered voter with a grievance. Their failures are costing you your jobs – it’s time to remind them you have the power to cost them theirs.

Kirsty McNeil (@kirstyjmcneill) is a consultant advising progressive organisations on strategy, advocacy and organisational development. She was previously Head of External Affairs in Downing Street and was on the board of Make Poverty History. She blogs at Global Dashboard.

Source: youthpolicy.org

“To create change, it is not enough for us to merely connect and share stories, we must also organize ourselves and take action”

What structures really change the world?

To address this question, we need to define structures as more than physical structures made of brick and mortar or glass and steel. Structures are also more than infrastructure, organizations, or institutions. Structures are the ideas, concepts, and strategies that form our communities and societies. There are structures help maintain the existing power dynamics, inequalities, and injustices of the status quo, but there are also structures that give us the tools to create progressive change in the world.

I would like to talk briefly about three “structures” that I believe can help change the world and that are central to my life’s work: storytelling, networks, and movements.

The Girl Effect – In Profile

The Girl Effect is a movement driven by a global network of girl champions. The Nike Foundation created the Girl Effect with financial and intellectual contributions by the NoVo Foundation and Nike Inc. and in collaboration with key partners such as the United Nations Foundation and the Coalition for Adolescent Girls.

The Girl Effect starts with a powerful message…

‘If you want to end poverty and help the developing world, the best thing you can do is invest time, energy, and funding into adolescent girls. It’s called the Girl Effect, because girls are uniquely capable of investing in their communities and making the world better.’

… it continues through outlining those obstacles that need removing to ensure this potential is maximised: