2.6 Youth organisations
Realising that the concerns of young people were not adequately addressed by the existing NGOs, groups of adolescents started to organise themselves in the Netherlands.
Today, the youth movement is as diverse as the rest of the NGO movement with some organisations being more action oriented than others. Activities include campaigning, awareness raising and lobby work in order to exert influence on policies and to promote discussions. The youth organisations are generally characterised by an enthusiastic approach, a growing national membership and a widening of international contacts.
A SEED Europe is the European part of the worldwide A SEED network and has a coordination office in Amsterdam. A SEED was initiated in 1991 as a youth campaign around the UNCED conference. It transformed into a global network of mostly youth and students groups active in the field of environment, development and human rights. The objectives are: initiating and coordinating actions and campaigns on environmental and development issues; promoting discussions in this field amongst youth groups; establishing partnerships between various organisations and groups worldwide; conducting campaigns on, among others TNCs, climate change, multilateral development banks, gender issues, transport, students and environment, European Union, forests. A Seed participates in the People’s Global Action (PGA), a network that unites groups form the South and North. Its newsletter is Roots, providing information and updates.
The Baobabconnections project was started up in 2001 as an initiative by Inzet, a Dutch NGO that did strive for a redistribution of wealth between the South and the North, between rich and poor. On January 1st 2003, the association Inzet became a project within Both ENDS.
Baobabconnections wants to establish an active online community. This provides an environment for young people from Africa and the Netherlands to share stories and express opinions about globalisation. Baobabconnections provides information about various issues of globalisation, and invites everybody to become involved and start interacting with each other.
Baobabconnections provides an inspirational online magazine on globalisation and organises various online competitions for its members.
EYFA is a European wide grassroots network of environmental youth organisations and individuals. It originated in 1986 as an initiative to 'Save the forests of Europe'. Since then the network has expanded and now runs projects on issues like alternative lifestyles, climate change, renewable energy, gender and related topics. With its new internet project EYFA plans to improve the information flow within the network. All forms of activism are supported, from non-violent campaigns against ecologically and socially unsustainable systems, to cultural performance, to building sustainable ways of living and working. Through seminars, international meetings, actions and demonstrations, and through the magazine 'Green Pepper' EYFA draws the attention of youth to the environmentally destructive and socially unjust system prevalent in our society, while offering alternatives.
Move Your World is a non-profit agency, which organises awareness-raising activities concerning international cooperation, specifically with respect to development cooperation and sustainable development. Move Your World's goal is to enlarge support for these issues among Dutch young people, ranging in age from 13 to 25, by means of campaigns, policy advice, smart parties, exchange programmes, conferences, workshops, etc. Move Your World uses diverse approaches that interlock with the interests of young people to bring a message across. Its strength is the ability to find interesting angles for a supposedly ‘tedious’ subject in order to make a message appealing to young people.
The Dutch National Youth Council started in January 2002. It is an umbrella organisation of youth organisations which acts as a focal point for Dutch youth aged 12 to 30. Its main goal is fostering youth participation. The Youth Council offers young people opportunities to work together, as individuals or in youth organisations. It supports the needs of young people on a local, regional, national and international level. It is an organisation of, for and by young people and gives them the opportunity to voice their opinions.
It is a serious partner in discussions with the government and towards other actors in decision-making and as such it can actively voice youth opinions towards these structures. The Council is amongst others active in the area of sustainable development and international youth participation.
Youth for Development & Cooperation is an international network of youth organisations that focuses on the social position of young people in developing countries and the role of youth organisations in International Corporation. YDC aims to strengthen youth structures that forge cooperation between young people in the North and the South that empowers them to shape their current and future livelihoods.
YDC strives to strengthen and support work on the above-mentioned issues by youth organisations that operate on a regional, national or local level in the North and South. To achieve its aims YDC is active in research, information exchange, capacity building, partnership and advocacy.
YDC publishes a regular newsletter FLASH that includes updates on member organisations' activities. YDC also has irregular publications on issues of youth and development (structural adjustment programmes, women, development education).
JMA, founded in 1990, aims to turn the Netherlands into an environmentally friendly society and to contribute to the establishment of an environmentally friendly world. JMA is a youth organisation with local branches. It aims to convince young people to adopt a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. In trying to live in an environmentally friendly way many obstacles are met which can only be removed by government and industry. Therefore JMA also takes action to make the government and industry act in an ecologically sustainable way.
In every part of the world, the YWCA acts as an agent for change on behalf of women. The YWCA movement does this for instance through awareness raising and education, through training, or through speaking out in international forums on issues of social justice, human rights, peace and ecological health. The YWCA brings people together to share organising strategies, information and ideas. Priorities of the Dutch YWCA are human rights, energy and environmental issues. The YWCA head office is based in Switzerland.
YWCA coordinates the Dutch activities of the World March of Women. The March is a worldwide solidarity movement against poverty and violence in which more than 6000 women's organisations from 165 countries participate. This Canadian initiative was formed in the aftermath of the World Women's Conference of Beijing in 1995.