|
By Adam Fletcher, Director of The
Freechild Project
On April 15, 2004 I traveled to São
Paulo, Brazil to speak at the International Seminar on Youth
Participation, sponsored by Projeto Juventude, a Brazilian youth
participation program, the Citizenship Institute, a national nonprofit
organization, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
I was one of eight international speakers present, with others coming
from South Africa, Portugal, Cuba, and Spain, among other places.
I was the only North American present. Jonah Wittkamper, the
South American coordinator of the Global Youth Action Network, was
responsible for identifying me and facilitated my attendance at the
conference. The following is my personal account of the trip, as
shared with the Freechild Yahoo Group, along with a transcript of my
address to the gathering.
Day One: "I
am here to speak at a United Nations-sponsored conference exploring
youth participation through public policy... Each of the speakers has
a different a focus, and mine is local and national policies that
promote youth participation in governance. As of today, I plan to
detail different programs on the local and national levels, in
communities and schools. I want to highlight the successes of these
programs, but also bring out the pitfalls of many of them, and offer
critical reflections on their inability to reach many young people.
Then I want to propose the most forward-thinking (read: progressive)
action going on, focusing on the youth rights movement,
youth-led community activism, and truly authentic youth/adult
partnerships. Today I will be touring the offices [of the Global
Youth Action Network here] and visiting different youth projects
around Sao Paulo, where I am at, where the conference is. Sao Paulo is
an incredible city, probably the largest in the Americas, with over 25
million people in the area..."
Day Two: "A young Zulu woman stopped me in
conversation yesterday and said,
`You´re a socialist, aren´t you?´ ´No, No!´I denied. I am a ´community
builder´! The title ´socialist´is a dirty word in the US!' It is
day 2 of the ´Seminário Internacional do Projeto Juventude´ here in São
Paulo, Brazil. In the first day here, I have seen and heard a
lot. The Brazilians seem fairly committed to establishing an
effective, sustainable, and unified youth policy. So far, the
conference speakers have all been government officials, UN officials,
or large national and international NGOs from different countries in
Europe, central America, Africa, India, and South America. A lot of
very esteemed professional types giving mini-dissertations on the
policies affecting young people in their
respective countries. Few have talked about youth participation [as I
know it] directly, but there have been hints. One speaker compared the
situation of youth involvement to the role of women in society. While
I do not agree with his analysis totally, it was an interesting and
sophisticated perspective.
Day Two (continued): "Its ironic that I am here
to speak, given that I have actually treated discussions like these as
the bane of my conference experiences in the past. These presentations
are always so dry and such an ineffective way to ´transmit knowledge´
- if that really is their goal. The audience in the room is
packed with government officials and young people. All are relatively
attentive, but its interesting to hear their impressions afterwards -
from what I have heard in English. I feel a real need to speak
passionately, and past the rhetoric. That will come tomorrow. A lot
swirling around in my own head, about how the ´youth scene´ in the US
is dominated by a small handful of large nonprofits, about how
programs are either determined by funders or by activists - and if you
are an activist, do not expect to get funding - unless you get along
with... the funders! By comparison, in Portugal young people who
gather together with a social mission are virtually guaranteed
financial support from the government. Those are some of my
reflections thus far. I met one-on-one with some local youth players
yesterday. Their work focuses on peace/nonviolence and youth
organizing. Its interesting to hear how they accomplish their work
with no local funding - there are no philanthropic foundations here.
Fundraising involves a lot of groveling and international contacts.
I´ve got to get back - a woman from Cuba is speaking next, and being
the good ´community builder´ I am, I would not miss that for the
world."
Day Three: "The last day of the conference is here. In the
past three days, I have
listened to esteemed speakers from around the world explaining youth
policies in their respective countries, and impassioned Brazilians,
young and old, eagerly discussing the future of national policy
affecting their country. I am humbled by the opportunity to
contribute to this dialogue, and excited to see the outcomes.
Throughout my time here I have reflected greatly on the situation of
young people in the United States. For several years my own interests
have been so refined, so radicalized, that I have forgotten about the
large-picture activities that are happening and that still need to
happen. I hinted at what I feel is happening in yesterday's email,
when I noted the large national nonprofits that dominate the ´youth
circuit´ in the states. There are other issues, including:
* The absence of a coordinated national, multi-issue youth advocacy
[organization/lobby]
* Continual under-information of young people about federal
legislative issues that affect them directly
* Systemic inability of social change movements and government
organizations to engage young people
* Ongoing misrepresentation of young people in popular media, despite
deliberate attempts at rectifying that imbalanced perspective
I think what is not happening includes:
* Current advocacy organizations meeting their missions of speaking
´for´ or with youth
* Inability of national organizations to develop sustainable networks
for the advancement of young people
* Lack of a national, centralized effort to promote meaningful
youth participation
I am not sure what needs to happen to make these things take flight,
but after listening to the organized efforts of governments and
organizations around the world, I am not sure that things things
actually CAN happen in the US."
Day Three (part two): "So at this conference the discussion
has revolved exclusively around developing a single, comprehensive
national youth policy in Brazil. Of course, there is nothing like this
in the US; it turns out that globally, these types of political
policies on youth are popular. [In the United States,] for the last 3
years there has been a group of policy advocates pushing for a
national youth policy known as the Younger Americans Act. In my
interpretation, this act would put a lot of money in the hands of
traditional youth-serving organizations (reinforcing the already
imbalanced amount of power and influence they have) and would
establish a series of token leadership opportunities for young people
throughout the bureaucracy that would need to be established.
Basically, this Act is a youth version of the Older Americans Act. By
way of
comparison, look what that Act did for seniors - dramatically improved
there conditions? I do not think so. Or did the Older Americans Act
just placate the organizations that lobby for seniors by stuffing
their pockets and meeting their constituents most pressing needs -
only to revoke those baby steps forward in the future by dismantling
Medicare and more? So, basically, I do not agree with the
Younger Americans Act. I would gladly explain myself more to anyone on
this list who wants to know. In a nutshell I would call it a
simplistic, exclusionary, and isolationist policy development designed
to make the ´youth
lobby´ stand down.
I came here with the understanding that they wanted to hear my
American-type perspective, so I gave it to them. Basically I said that
young people in the US ca not rely on policy-makers and legislation to
create change in society, [and] that society does not need to create
change through legislation. I talked about Dr. King and Mother Jones'
child labor marches (10,000 kids marching on the Capitol in 1903) and
the need for young people to lead change themselves and to work with
their communities and not wait for politicians and legislation to
catch up with them! I tied it all together with some
quotes about interdependence. Alas, at the end not very many new
fans came rushing up to me for an autograph, but I guess that is not
why I am here. No massaging of the white male ego today. Or maybe that
is just the righteousness of a critical thinker. Anyway, I just hope I
got the point across."
To read my address to the International Seminar on Youth
Participation, click here>
For more information on the conference (in
Portuguese),
click
here>
For a summary of the Younger American's Act,
click here>
To read about Mother Jones' child labor marches,
click here>
To find out more about Dr. King and interdependence,
click here>
 |
