September 2008 Feature Articles
8th Global Conference on National Youth Service
The 8th Global Conference on National Youth Service will take place in Paris, France this fall from 19-22 November, 2008. The conference will be held at the Fondation des Etats-Unis and will be hosted by Innovations in Civic Participation (ICP), Unis-Cite, and the Association of Voluntary Service Organizations (AVSO). This conference is an exciting opportunity for professionals in the field of youth development to come together to discuss the potential for national youth service to promote community and youth development. Past participants have come from 48 different countries on six continents, as well as from several international organizations.
The
goal of the Global Conference is to provide a
forum for IANYS
members and other international youth
development professionals to share
information and discuss developments in
national youth service programs and
policies in Europe and around the world. The
Conference will take place over
the course of four days and will include an
optional session on policy and
program development, a combination of plenary
sessions, round table
presentations, smaller workshops, and a
service project. Round table sessions
will address issues of scaling up programs,
measuring program impacts, social
inclusion, and service-learning. Smaller
workshops will be offered on a variety
of topics including meeting critical community
needs through service,
developing regional networks, comparing
program models, stimulating private
sector investment, and building a research
agenda around youth service.
Exciting keynote speakers will be in attendance, including Dr. Kumi Naidoo, the Honorary President of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. Naidoo is an experienced and knowledgeable speaker on youth and development, having served on the Panel of Eminent Persons on UN Civil Society Relations and the steering committee of the World Economic Forum's Global Governance Initiative. He also chairs the International Facilitation Group of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.
Registration
is available online.
Registration rates are $375
for an NGO Representative; $425 for a
University Representative, Independent
Researcher or Other; and $500 for a Government
Representative. For
more information, including preliminary
conference agenda, online registration or
IANYS background,
please visit our website at www.icicp.org/ianys.
IANYS, the International Association for National Youth Service, is a network of organizations created to encourage every country to consider the implementation of policies and programs to support youth civic engagement and to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas surrounding youth civic engagement policies and programs. IANYS was formed in 1996 at the 3rd bi-annual global conference on national youth service, and since then it has grown to include members from 48 different countries on six continents.
Volunteerism and the 2008
Beijing Summer Olympics
By
Alicia
Lovett, ICP Intern, and Kelly Fox, ICP Office
Manager
The
athletic accomplishments of the 2008 Summer
Olympics - American Michael Phelps'
8 gold medals in men's swimming, Jamaican
Usain Bolt's record-shattering
sprints in the men's 100 and 200 meters, China
becoming the first nation
besides the USA and former Soviet Union to
lead in total number of gold medals
won, Mongolia and India winning their first
gold medals ever - are now recorded
in the annals in Olympic history. But beyond
the athleticism, the Beijing
Olympics has left behind a new and invigorated
spirit of volunteerism in
China.
According
to the official
Beijing Olympics website, an unprecedented
1.7 million individuals were
selected as Olympic volunteers from a pool of
over two million applicants.
100,000 of these volunteers worked directly in
the venues of the Olympics and
Paralympics, while another 400,000 city
volunteers and one million society
volunteers donated their time in providing
visitor information, translation
services, first-aid assistance, and traffic
direction.
Western-style
volunteerism, with its emphasis on providing
organized and readily available
volunteer opportunities to the public, is
relatively new to China.[1]
The Chinese focus has traditionally
been on service within the context of the
family and immediate community, and
historically there has been a lack of
public awareness of volunteering opportunities
and little media coverage of
volunteer efforts. Lu Yongzheng, secretary of
the Secretariat of the Committee,
speaking on his goals for popularizing
volunteer service, notes that
volunteerism has not yet been completely
integrated into Chinese public life,
and that the benefits are still being
recognized by the public.[2]
There
are encouraging signs, though, that the spirit
of volunteerism harnessed by the
Beijing Olympics will continue to grow beyond
the Closing Ceremony. David
Brettel, director of the volunteer program of
the Sydney Committee for Olympic
Games and consultant for the volunteer program
in Beijing, notes that since the
Sydney Olympics in 2000, the number of
volunteers in Australia has grown by 25
percent to over 4 million as people, inspired
by the example of the Sydney 2000
Olympics, have come to realize the importance
of volunteering. Brettel
describes the Beijing Olympics as having taken
a great leap forward from
Sydney: "In my opinion, the volunteer program
of Beijing Olympic Games
will be a new benchmark, as Beijing has
designed a much better plan than any other
city, especially the massive city volunteer
program. Beijing is unique. If
successful, the volunteer program in the
future will change."[3]
The
Beijing Olympics have inspired a number of
initiatives to foster a greater
sense of civic service in China. Last
December, Beijing effected a regulation
promoting volunteer work by describing
hundreds of types of volunteer work
available, raising public awareness of
opportunities for civic service and
making it more convenient for citizens to
become involved. Since then,
volunteerism has increased rapidly and
volunteers are becoming a growing social
force in China, as demonstrated by the
outpouring of relief and rescue work by
nearly 5 million volunteers in the aftermath
of the May earthquake in the
Sichuan province.[4]
China
seeks to
sustain this enthusiasm for volunteering
post-Olympics. The Joint United
Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), United
Nations Volunteers, Beijing
Youth League, Marie Stopes International
(MSI), and the Red Cross Society of
China joined forces in June and July to launch
a number of training and
volunteerism programs for Olympic volunteers
in a bid to support volunteerism
as a resource for development in China. In one
June project, 5,500 young volunteers
from 12 universities participated in intensive
training on HIV prevention and
antidiscrimination, while an additional
100,000 volunteers received a basic
information package on HIV. "Engaging
some of China's
most capable young people and making them the
messengers of positive and correct
knowledge on HIV can help dispel inaccurate
myths and break down the stigma and
discrimination against people affected by
HIV," said Bernhard Schwartlander,
the UNAIDS Country Coordinator in China.[5]
Other
projects promoting environmental awareness and
volunteerism as a
development resources are part of the
US$1.4million "Strengthening Volunteerism
for Development in China through the Beijing
2008 Olympic Games" initiative by
the UNDP, UNV, and their Chinese partners.[6]
This initiative has especially focused on
tapped
into the volunteerism of university
students and young people in
China.
Young people
who succeeded in earning a place as a Beijing
Olympic volunteer are among
brightest hopes for China's future leadership,
making them an ideal population
in which to instill values of volunteering and
advocacy on HIV and other
development issues. "It is our hope that
Olympic volunteers will share this
knowledge and look for opportunities to
continue volunteering on important
development issues such as raising awareness
of HIV" said UNDP Country Director
Subinay Nandy.[7]
As
part of the preparations for the Olympics,
young volunteers have undergone
extensive
general, professional, and venue training.
These skills learned from their
volunteer experience with the Beijing Olympics
will equip Chinese young people
with the skills and experience needed to
continue contributing to their
communities post-Olympics. Long after the
stadium lights at the "Bird's Nest"
have dimmed, Chinese young people inspired by
the Olympics with a new passion
for volunteering will turn to addressing the
social and development issues
facing modern China.