April News /

YES SUPPORTS CELEBRATION OF GLOBAL YOUTH SERVICE DAY

Organizations in more than 100 countries have signed up to lead local efforts for Global Youth Service Day 2005 (April 15-17), ensuring that simultaneous, youth-driven community service projects will take place internationally throughout this weekend-long event.

Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) is a public education campaign that highlights the amazing contributions youth make to their communities through volunteering year-round. By encouraging young people to design and lead service projects that tackle a broad range of immediate, local issues - from HIV/AIDS to overcrowded orphanages to contaminated drinking wells - the event allows youth to play an active leadership role in solving problems they see around them.

Organized annually by Youth Service America (YSA) - a member of the YES USA Network - Global Youth Action Network (GYAN) and a consortium of international organizations and more than 100 national coordinating committees, GYSD has grown from 27 participating countries since its inception in 2000 to over 125 countries in 2004.

With Education as a foundation, the Youth Employment Summit Campaign (YES) Framework for Action includes 6Es, one of which being Empowerment. The E of Empowerment recognises youth action, YES considers youth volunteer service as a key strategy for youth inclusion and participation in the development process. For this reason, since 2002 YES has and continues to be part of the GYSD´s International Coordinating Committee. Moreover, the 70 YES Country Networks worldwide play an active role collaborating with GYSD local efforts and generating synergies among them.

Some examples of YES support in 2005 include:

YES Georgia is the National Leading Agency of GYSD in that country and organized the GYSD with the Guria Regional Network and the Student Youth Council. The events included workshops with young volunteers, cleaning parks, launching youth corps and planting trees.

YES Argentina Host Agency is also the National Leading Agency of GYSD in that country. The events included workshops, seminars and youth project fairs to take place until September 2005 country-wide and GYSD 2005 will be formally closed in that country with a national youth volunteers project fair.

The GYSD National Lead Agencies in Colombia, Paraguay and Panama are also members of YES Colombia, YES Paraguay and YES Panama in the respective countries. YES Mexico and YES Dominican Republic also participated in local GYSD celebrations.

YES Networks are mostly youth driven and coordinated on a volunteer basis with Country Coordinators being volunteers themselves. This is an example of the amazing contribution young volunteers are making to the socio-economic development of their countries. YES promotes and values the great work of young volunteers around the world.

For more information on YES please contact:
Kenroy Roach, YES Country Networks Global Coordinator
kenroy@yesweb.org
www.yesweb.org

For more information on GYSD please contact:
Contact: Christina Wessell, Youth Service America (YSA)
cwessell@ysa.org
www.gysd.net