Youth Service in Latin America

While there is a rich, active voluntary sector in Latin America, many organizations working in the field are isolated and are either unable or unaware of how to access information that they could use to increase their impact. Although young people in the region are increasingly engaged in meaningful service projects, they are still a minority of the total youth population.

What is missing is not motivation and interest from young people, but structured opportunities that help young people to develop the skills, knowledge and values necessary to build strong communities and participatory cultures.

Photo Courtesy of Amigos De Las Americas

ICP's work in Latin America

ICP has partnered with the Latin American Center for Service Learning (CLAYSS) and a host of private and multilateral organizations to strategically build the field of youth service and civic participation in the region.

Some activities that ICP and CLAYSS have undertaken and are conducting on a continuing basis include:

Organizing regional workshops; developing networks of practitioners, policymakers, scholars, youth organizations and funders.
Developing information clearinghouses; publishing newsletters and other periodicals
Collecting research on service; pursuing regional resource development; and offering training opportunities.

This work stems from a formulation of a regional network of service organizations that ICP organized with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank Youth Unit in Lima,

Peru

Building Partnerships for Change in Latin America

On March 24, 2004, ICP and the Inter-American Development Bank Youth Unit (IDB Youth) co-sponsored a meeting in Lima,

Peru

, to identify capacity-building needs in the youth service field and to discuss ways on how these needs might be supported in the region. The meeting brought together 23 youth service specialists from across the region, including donors, government representatives, and practitioners.

Susan Stroud, Executive Director of ICP, joined Eugenio Ravinet, National Director of the National Youth Institute in Chile, Lindolfo Monjarretz, Secretary of Youth in Nicaragua, and Cristian Castano, Director General of the Youth Institute in Mexico, in a workshop entitled, �Youth Service Policies: An Innovative Strategy for Development.�

Participants discussed current policies pertaining to youth service and volunteerism, and examined factors that help or inhibit their implementation. They also explored the idea of youth service policies as a mechanism for increasing social inclusion in the context of development strategies for the region.

That meeting spurred the creation of a Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) capacity-building working group to

develop an action plan to address the needs of young people and youth service organizations in the region.

For more information on this topic, please view the concept paper (available in Spanish) developed for this meeting by Nieves Tapia of the Latin American Center for Service-Learning (CLAYSS).