Youth in Urban Development: Bringing Ideas into Action

New Directions for Youth Development, 2002

Given the emerging interest among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in youth participation, it is important to examine and assess carefully the promise and challenges of youth engagement.

2019

Young people are often touted as the future—future policy makers, future practitioners, and future leaders. But this narrative fails to acknowledge that young people are also the present. Today, one in two people globally are younger than 30 years. However, is achieving a shared and sustainable future even possible when young people are pervasively excluded from the decision making and development of better health? It is no surprise that true, tangible improvements in health systems for and by young people have lagged woefully even for issues that most affect them, such as mental health and violence. This lack of progress on key health challenges has occurred not because of an absence of passionate young leaders on the front lines of health, but despite their efforts, because of insufficient avenues for meaningful youth participation. This reality has fuelled inaccurate perceptions that “emerging youth movements have yet to turn their attention to health.” On the contrary, from clim...

SAGE Publications Ltd eBooks, 2007

In the preceding chapter Peter Benson described the positive youth development (PYD) model of applied research and its implications for action. The PYD has two central ideas: (1) development is promoted by developmental assets, both internal and external; and (2) individuals, communities, and societies vary in the qualities that promote the development of these assets. This approach offers direct guidance for both research and action. One goal of research is to identify individual, community, and society assets, and one goal of policy then is to promote the development of community and society resources that promote the development of assets. Research indicates that the more internal and external assets that youth possess, the healthier and more successful is their development into adulthood (Scales, Benson, Leffert, & Blyth, 2000). Yet research also indicates that young people have only 16.5-21.6 assets on average of 40 identified, and youth in New York have only 5% of the optimal number of assets (Benson, Leffert, Scales, & Blyth, 2000). The PYD approach is valuable because it (1) allows an assessment of youth's well-being and of the conditions that contribute to it and (2) provides a tool for monitoring the success of our young people and the extent to which the contexts in which they grow up promote their development, thereby serving as an important social indicator. This information then becomes critical for designing youth policies in countries across the globe. This PYD approach is also attractive for several theoretical reasons. First, its focus on positive development instead of risks or deficiencies is its overarching contribution. This view reasons that all young people have needs; youth differ not in individual qualities such as resiliency but in the extent to which their needs are met by the resources in their environment. The research and policy focus is shifted from solely focusing on individual qualities and from preventing negative behaviors to focusing on deficiencies in the environment and to promoting positive outcomes. It also tends toward universal policies, as the target is all youth, not just "those at risk." Second, this approach focuses on the whole individual, viewing socioemotional • 59 •

Journal of Youth Researches, Republic of Turkey Ministry of Youth and Sports, 2017

Youth participation constitutes an essential process for promoting access to citizenship rights and particularly in terms of community development. So far, there has been little study in terms of youth participation in different matters and dimensions. Building on the notion of youth participation and empowerment, this paper tries to argue on the importance of youth involvement in the process of decision making regarding issues that affect their life. Young people are particularly capable of engaging in decision making processes, but this ability is often denied from parents, teachers, stake-holders or other adults because they often do not consider youth as being capable enough to be able to make decisions or take responsibility. One of the main objectives of this paper is to show how such conceptualizations towards youth participation can be very frustrating or detrimental towards their individuality. The paper proposes a few recommendations in regards to youth participation especially focusing on community engagement. In addition, social awareness, education and strengthening youth /adult relationships are central in the process of overcoming the imbalance of power and promoting agency.

Journal of Community Practice, 2006

Youth participation is a process of involving young people in the institutions and decisions that affect their lives. It includes initiatives that emphasize educational reform, juvenile justice, environmental quality, and other issues; that involve populations distinguished by class, race, gender, and other characteristics; and that operate in rural areas, small towns, suburbs, and neighborhoods of large cities in developing areas and industrial nations worldwide. As expressions of participation, young people are organizing groups for social and political action, planning programs of their own choosing, and advocating their interests in the community. They are raising consciousness, educating others on matters that concern them, and providing services of their own choosing. No single strategy characterizes all approaches to participation. Activities like these can be conceptualized in various ways. For example, Roger Hart (1997) identifies activities and places them on the rungs of a vertical "ladder of participation" in accordance with the power they exercise; Danny HoSang (2003) analyzes youth organizing, youth development, and other models on a horizontal continuum; and

The Youth Engaged Policy (YEP) project brought together 100 young people and policy practitioners (‘policy makers’) from across Australia to investigate: how ‘youth engagement’ is understood; barriers and enablers of engagement; and, to develop a framework to underpin cultures and practices of engagement in federal policy processes.

International Research Journal of Social Sciences, 2018

The United Nations (UN) has characterised societies. As such, the youth are encouraged to participate in municipal development programmes, activities and elections. This can be done amongst others through local youth council aim to promote and protect the interest of the youth. They also represent the youth in governance of municipality. In South Africa, Department of Social Development White Paper for Social Welfar 16 and 30 years of age. The Correctional Services also refers to the youth as all those in the age range 14 to 25 years of age. The National Health Policy Guidelines focus on the adolescent and the youth as age. The African Youth Charter also defines youth as those between the ages of 15 years and 35 years and excludes the 14 year olds. The paper reviews the factors that hinder/promote youth participation in rural communit and projects in the Mafikeng Local Municipality (MLM). It also examine the role of the LYC in involving the youth in community activities in MLM. The study used open enabled the respondents to respond beyond the borders of the questionnaires.

Youth_that_transforms_Armenia. National Human Development Report.2019

Technium Social Sciences Journal, 2020

For sustainable development and meaningful changes in society, the use of human energy is a must. In the question of the use of human energy one-third of human energy is untapped or not addressed properly and this constitutes the youth. However, to utilize these very human energies there is a need for policy, education, training, participation, equitable access to resources, and process of empowerment. And for the optimum utilization of youth energy, the diversity & complexity of the issue need to be understood from a holistic perspective. The main objective of this paper is to look for ways and means of youth empowerment and community development. The methods used in this research are descriptive surveys, observation, personal interviews, and focus group discussions (FGD).

2019

Aim: Youth engagement (YE) is a practice that enhances youth leadership skills and wellbeing while also supporting youth civic contribution. Engagement of youth perspectives is critical to the development of programs and policy directions that affect them and YE practice has been widely adopted within integrated youth services (IYS). Frayme is an international network that brings people together from across disciplines to increase the uptake of IYS. Some of Frayme’s main objectives are to synthesize knowledge regarding best practices of YE within IYS and to stimulate changes in practice toward better standards of YE. The purpose of this paper is to: 1) describe YE practice and how it relates to IYS and system transformation in youth services and 2) to present findings from a needs assessment examining how youth and adult allies define effective YE within IYS. Methods: Frayme facilitated a ProAction Cafe to collect youth and adult ally feedback with regard to how they define YE withi...