YOUth make it happen

Goodbye to the Singapore Youth Conference and see you in Colombia for the World Summit for Youth Volunteering in November, as youth take center stage at the IAVE World Conference on Volunteering in Singapore.  

Youth Conference Report at the 21st IAVE World Volunteer Conference closing ceremony, Thursday, 27 January 2011

Mark Molloy and Daniel Buritica presented a report on the Youth Conference attached to the Singapore World Volunteer Conference. The event started with a challenge from Dr. Lee for participants to not just enjoy the conference, but go home and make a difference in their communities. 

The Youth Conference first became a part of IAVE’s world events in Amsterdam in 2001, and had since become a tradition, with youth events led by young people at all the subsequent world conferences.

In its 40 anniversary, IAVE confirmed it commitment to youth, while at the same time moved in a different direction away from a physical youth office and towards a fluid youth component. Mark invited participants to contribute to this component, and thanked everyone who was involved in organizing the Singapore conference. 

Daniel Buritica called on delegates to support youth volunteers, and invited representatives from the conference to read out the youth conference declaration. 439 youth volunteers 26 countries attended the conference from January 21-23 at Singapore Management University. The youth declaration mentioned volunteering as a global movement, a way of life, and a force to change the world.

Oliver Loke, volunteer chair of the IAVE Youth Volunteer Conference, said the event achieved a focus on sustainable volunteering, a recognition of the “leveling up” of civil society in Singapore, an acknowledgment of social responsibility, and called for youth engagement in leadership roles. 

See You In Colombia - You Make it Happen!

The next event on the IAVE youth calendar will be the Youth Summit in Barranquilla, Colombia on November 3-5, 2011.

Partners of the Americas is hosting the World Summit for Youth Volunteering, together with Universidad del Norte and IAVE in Barranquilla on the UNINORTE campus in November. Like the Youth Conference in Singapore, the host committee of the summit is youth-lead, to make it an event planed by youth for youth. 

The outline agenda is: Day 1: youth and meaningful volunteerism, Day 2: towards greater social inclusion, Day 3: youth as change agents. There will be three contest leading up to the conference: (1) Heroes of the Millennium, (2) 100 Ideas, (3) Film Festival on “Volunteering: What it means to be YOUth”.

Partners has a plan to build a network of youth correspondents, and highly qualified correspondents may be invited to lead their delegation to the conference. The aim is to get at least one youth from every country in the world. To do this, up to 50 scholarships will be awarded. 

Following from the first World Summit in Japan at the end of the UN International Year of Volunteers (IYV) in 2001, this is only the second such event - and will mark the end of the tenth anniversary of IYV (IVY+10). 

Milking the crowd, the young presenters loosened their ties and opening their shirts to reveal t-shirts with the “You Make It Happen!” printed on them, before rallying everyone to shout out the slogan "See you in Colombia - You make it happen!" at the top of their voices.

See the summit website http://www.worldyouthsummit.org/ for more details.