5) Description of initiative: The promotion and protection of human rights must be at the forefront of any youth movement dedicated to violence prevention. We are building and supporting a community of youth who are actively promoting and protecting human rights, and educating and inspiring the next generation to work for peaceful change. Young people must learn how to avoid becoming victims or perpetrators; instead they must choose to take action for peace and work together to eliminate the root causes of conflict. By providing youth with the tools to combat racism, violence, poverty, genocide, torture and other human rights issues, we are helping to preventing the conflicts of tomorrow while transforming the conflicts of today.

We work with youth and young adults ages 14-30, providing them with training, technical support and frameworks for collaborative action. Our programs address the needs of both established youth activists who are already leaders in their communities as well as youth who are at an earlier stage in engaging as human rights defenders. The youth we work with come from a wide range of ethnic, national, class and religious backgrounds.

Our current program focus is on providing a range human rights education and training programs at the local, national and global levels. These programs provide an opportunity for youth to build their knowledge and skills in human rights and conflict transformation as well as build supportive connections among their peers and develop collaborative action projects. A recent priority has been working in countries that have experienced mass violence or genocide and in countries that are transitioning from violence to peace. We are also piloting a U.S. educational initiative for high school students to share the stories, challenges and strategies for change being utilized by youth activists from conflict and post- conflict zones around the world.

6) Description of innovation: Global Youth Connect is one of the few human rights organizations whose work is focused entirely on youth activism for human rights on an international level. As such, our work is taking an innovative and entrepreneurial approach to eliminating the culture of violence and creating communities of peacebuilders. We are applying the international human rights framework in new and creative ways to achieve positive change. Our programs are not just reactive but pro-active and combine best practices from the human rights, conflict transformation and youth leadership fields. We are focusing on the interconnections between the full spectrum of human rights (economic, social and cultural as well as political and civil) with an interest of understanding and addressing the root causes of violence and the breakdown of human rights protections. Youth are at the center of our human rights and conflict prevention work; we value youth as assets and seek to nurture and support their projects, ideas and actions to promote human rights. Our programs are integrated and interconnected with each program drawing inspiration from and providing value to other programs. Our work is not just local or global, but also values the connections and solidarity between local projects and a global youth movement for change. We are grounded in a holistic approach to human rights education that is human- centered not issue-centered, focusing on individuals as agents of change. At the same time, we value the inherent importance of collaborative action and the constant exchange of ideas and strategies. The quality and depth of our programming and its impact on those we work with is just as important as the number of people reached.

7) Delivery model: Our primary method of reaching youth is through workshops and other educational programs. We believe that experiential training programs focused on in-person connection, dialogue, sharing and action planning is one of the most powerful program models to promote human rights activism among and between youth. To reach a broader audience, we organize public forums, presentations, special events as well as utilize the power of internet technology and traditional media outlets.

8) Key operational partnerships: Collaborative approaches and strategic partnerships are at the core of our work. In our international work in particular, we have developed core partnerships with organizations who share our mission of youth involvement in human rights and together we co-develop and co- facilitate programs. We have also develop many other collaborations with organizations around the world through inviting youth leaders from these organizations to our training programs, providing youth volunteers to support their work, organizing site visits to learn more about the strategies they use and the challenges they face, and raising the profile of their work by sharing it with a broader global audience. In some cases, we have provided workshops for other organizations who wish us to add value to their existing work with young people. We have also financially supported the work of many of these organizations by providing partnership grants and funding through a small grants fund directed at investing additional resources in programming which is making the connection between youth leadership and human rights promotion.

9) Financial model: Many of our training programs and other activities are free-of-cost to participants; others are implemented on a fee-for-service model drawing on the experience of colleges in the U.S. To help eliminate potential barriers arising from charging a fee, we have developed a fundraising guide and provide technical support in fundraising. Many participants in our programs have had tremendous success in raising funds as a result. In fact, this fundraising process is part of the education and training process since resource generation is an important part of activism. It also provides them with a chance to talk about the issues they care about and why they are important to support. We have also established a scholarship fund to help support some of the participants in meeting their fundraising goals and we have also established a fellowship program in our main office to allow some participants the opportunity to offset the cost of their participation.

          • Costs as percentage of income: N/A

          • Financing: We utilize a diversity of strategies to generate financial support for our work and activities ranging from program fees to grants from private foundations (e.g., United States Institute for Peace, Third Millennium Foundation, Reebok Human Rights Foundation), individual and business contributions, mini-grants from other organizations, in- kind donations of goods and services, special events (e.g., movie screenings and dinners) and sale of goods.

In the long-term, we anticipate supplementing our current sources of funding through grants from government sources, developing an on-line store which can generate income to support our work, diversifying our funding base, deepening relationships with existing supporters and explore the possibility of building an endowment.

10) Effectiveness

          • Project outcomes: Approximately 1,000 youth and 100 organizations from 20 countries have directly benefited; Hundreds, if not thousands, have benefited indirectly. Here is one example of how our work has impacted the life a participant: My participation in the training has significantly improved programming at Our Niger Delta. The networks that were built have been particularly useful not only to the organization but to me personally. It has reinforced our belief in youth training as a major source of empowerment. What about inspiration? That was 80% of the impact. It proved that young people can actually make the difference. Coming from the Niger Delta this meant a lot to me because as many, particularly older persons, blame youth for most problems in the Delta.

          • Number of clients in past year: Over the past year, approximately 400 youth from Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Rwanda and the U.S. have directly benefited from our programs.

11) Scaling up strategy

          • Stage of the initiative: Scaling Up stage.

          • Expansion plan: In the area of education and training, we will: 1) organize regular training workshops at the global, regional, national and local levels; 2) expand programming to new country sites; and 3) expand U.S. programming to new communities. We will also strengthen programming in: 1) youth advocacy & action: 2) research & documentation; and 3) grantmaking. Highlights include: opportunities for youth to take action for human rights; documenting the stories of youth activists through reports, video documentaries and photo essays; and youth-led fundraising and grantmaking to invest new resources in youth human rights projects. We will also expand our organizational structure (e.g., establishing chapters and regional centers).

12) Origin of the initiative: In 1997, young people gathered together at a genocide conference held in Stockholm, Sweden, intent on finding new ways to prevent the crimes against humanity then ravaging the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and other zones of conflict around the world. As a result, a group of international young leaders, many from conflict regions themselves, bonded together to build an organization whose goal would be to prevent such atrocities from occurring in the first place. The result was the creation of Global Youth Connect.

Contact Information:
Jennifer  Kloes
Executive Director
Global Youth Connect
(NGO)
15 Gage Street
United States
Tel: (845) 338-2220
Fax: (347) 412-9779
Email: jennifer@globalyouthconnect.org
Website: www.globalyouthconnect.org