and Community Change: An Introduction

2006

Youth participation is a process of involving young people in the institutions and decisions that affect their lives. It includes initiatives that emphasize educational reform, juvenile justice, environmental quality, and other issues; that involve populations distinguished by class, race, gender, and other characteristics; and that operate in rural areas, small towns, suburbs, and neighborhoods of large cities in developing areas and industrial nations worldwide.

Journal of Youth Researches, Republic of Turkey Ministry of Youth and Sports, 2017

Youth participation constitutes an essential process for promoting access to citizenship rights and particularly in terms of community development. So far, there has been little study in terms of youth participation in different matters and dimensions. Building on the notion of youth participation and empowerment, this paper tries to argue on the importance of youth involvement in the process of decision making regarding issues that affect their life. Young people are particularly capable of engaging in decision making processes, but this ability is often denied from parents, teachers, stake-holders or other adults because they often do not consider youth as being capable enough to be able to make decisions or take responsibility. One of the main objectives of this paper is to show how such conceptualizations towards youth participation can be very frustrating or detrimental towards their individuality. The paper proposes a few recommendations in regards to youth participation especially focusing on community engagement. In addition, social awareness, education and strengthening youth /adult relationships are central in the process of overcoming the imbalance of power and promoting agency.

New Directions for Youth Development, 2002

Given the emerging interest among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in youth participation, it is important to examine and assess carefully the promise and challenges of youth engagement.

Participation in Urban Climate Protection, 2011

Participation is frequently considered key to any policy response, more often than not with the ambition to orchestrate the comeback of previously established forms of political involvement. At the same time, participation tends to be encumbered with the responsibility to reconnect the politically disenfranchised, overlooking the fact that the mechanisms of exclusion reach far beyond the political domain.

Policy Studies, 2003

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International Research Journal of Social Sciences, 2018

The United Nations (UN) has characterised societies. As such, the youth are encouraged to participate in municipal development programmes, activities and elections. This can be done amongst others through local youth council aim to promote and protect the interest of the youth. They also represent the youth in governance of municipality. In South Africa, Department of Social Development White Paper for Social Welfar 16 and 30 years of age. The Correctional Services also refers to the youth as all those in the age range 14 to 25 years of age. The National Health Policy Guidelines focus on the adolescent and the youth as age. The African Youth Charter also defines youth as those between the ages of 15 years and 35 years and excludes the 14 year olds. The paper reviews the factors that hinder/promote youth participation in rural communit and projects in the Mafikeng Local Municipality (MLM). It also examine the role of the LYC in involving the youth in community activities in MLM. The study used open enabled the respondents to respond beyond the borders of the questionnaires.

2003

FIVE YOUTH from the San Francisco Bay Area recently joined twenty-five other young people and over one hundred adults at an international conference on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. “It was the most un-youth-friendly place,” explained one young woman. “Every day we woke up early and spent hours listening to adults lecture about the experiences of youth. There was no time for us to talk to anyone, no time to move around, and when we tried to tell them about our feelings, they didn’t really listen. Nothing really changed—until the last day when we finally got to do our presentation. One of the adults tried to come up and facilitate our question-andanswer period, and we just said, ‘No, thank you. We’re prepared to do this for ourselves. Sit down please.’ I don’t think the adults really got it until then.”1

The Good Society, 2005

Young people should participate in educational reform at the community level, because their participation provides a legitimate source of information for making policy, planning, and program decisions. It prepares youth to exercise their political rights and to participate actively in a democratic society. It also strengthens their social development, by increasing their individual involvement, organizational capacity, and ability to create community change (Hart