User:GYConnect/Sandbox

Global Youth Connect is a fully incorporated 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Kingston, NY that is “dedicated to empowering youth to advance human rights and creating a more just world”

History
GYC was founded by an international group of youth and leaders in the field of human rights who came together at a genocide prevention conference in 1997. Concerned with finding new ways to prevent crimes against humanity, such as those in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and other zones of conflict around the world, they recognized that additional resources need to be leveraged to engage and empower youth to take action on human rights. With the help of a planning grant from the Dart Foundation, a steering committee of 15 young people from 10 different countries – including Bosnia, Guatemala, Cambodia, Nigeria, and the United States -- spent two years building the organization's foundations.

In August 1999, Global Youth Connect began operating as a fully incorporated 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Since then, we have developed and implemented programs that are supporting and inspiring the passions and lives of youth and helping to create change on a wide variety of human rights and social justice issues. Over the past decade, GYC has organized 26 human rights training programs serving more than 625 young people around the world, including youth leaders from 15 different countries and has ambitious plans to deepen and expand this work.

Mission and Vision
Mission: “Global Youth Connect is dedicated to empowering youth to advance human rights and create a more just world.”

Vision: “We envision a world where the human rights of all people are equally respected, fully protected and universally realized. We also envision a world where all young people – irregardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, gender or other differences – are encouraged and empowered to non-violently claim their own rights and serve as advocates for the rights of others.”

Who We Serve
GYC programs serve a global community of youth and young adults, ages 14-30. GYC supports youth who are already established leaders in their community and who are looking for ways to strengthen their skills, expand their understanding, deepen the impact of social justice projects and build a network of supportive allies. They also serve youth who are at an earlier stage in their activism to enable them to better understand how to use their unique talents to advance human rights. As a global organization with programs in a variety of countries around the world, the youth they work with come from all backgrounds – from the poorest communities to the wealthiest, from the “developed” world to the “underdeveloped” world, and from a wide range of ethnic, national, and religious backgrounds.

Goals and Objectives
•	Increase understanding among youth of both the theoretical and practical context of the human rights framework; •	Build the skills, knowledge and confidence of youth to raise awareness, take action and work collaboratively on projects to promote and defend human rights; •	Facilitate meaningful dialogue, enable critical thinking and analysis of complex issues and encourage joint problem solving to address shared human rights concerns; •	Foster personal and emotional growth by testing boundaries and limitations, reflecting critically on our own lives and cultures, exploring how the choices we make affect others; •	Build strong personal connections and community among youth activists; •	Provide positive outlets and opportunities for youth to work to promote human rights; and •	Create, inspire and nurture both new and existing youth-led projects aimed at promoting and protecting human rights.

Priority Area's of Interests
•	The connection between human rights violations and violent conflict: GYC has a priority interest in working in countries which have experienced mass violence, war or genocide and are currently transitioning to peace and/or undergoing an active process of healing, reconciliation and justice. To date, this priority interest has been the main focus of their work.

•	The intersection between human rights, development and globalization: This includes a specific interest in working to address economic, social and cultural injustices, especially those which may be seeding future violent conflict, war or genocide.

•	Advancing the rights of children and youth: In order to help create the world we envision, the rights of children and youth must be protected. As such, we are interested in addressing children’s rights issues, especially in communities and countries that have experienced or are experiencing violent conflict, war or genocide.

Guiding Principles
Guiding Principles:

•	The human rights framework informs and guides their work. GYC believe's it is important to understand and address the full spectrum of human rights – civil, political, social, economic and cultural – as well as considering individual and collective rights. They also aim to combine the best practices from other related fields, such as conflict transformation, community organizing, social justice and youth empowerment.

•	GYC value's youth as agents for social change. They aim to empower them by helping them identify and implement their own ideas. While providing guidance and mentoring, GYC does not believe there is only one best way but rather, aim's to spark the imagination and creativity of young people in the hope they will see a new and more effective way of approaching an old problem.

•	GYC recognizes that the best learning comes from the in-person exchange of ideas and shared experiences. They also appreciate the need for young people to have a group of supportive peers and mentors that they can rely on for help and support. Therefore, community-building is a key element of everything they do.

•	GYC's educational methodology is drawn from a mixture of techniques and strategies used by the popular education movement. Their programs are highly interactive and experiential. They promote a “whole person” approach to leadership development where emotional and social learning are just as important as traditional intellectual content.

•	As an organization dedicated to social change, GYC believes it is important to model, to the best of their ability, their vision of the world within their programs and organizational structure. This includes working a diverse group of youth and offering meaningful opportunities for young people to play leadership roles within the organization.

•	Collaboration is also key element of GYC’s approach. They value working in solidarity with other organizations and in all of their programs emphasize the inherent value in collaborative action.

Human Rights Delegations
Human rights delegations bring together a committed group of young participants who are dedicated to working and learning together. A human rights delegation typically includes a mixture of the following types of activities:

•	Educational training workshops where participants share ideas, analyze problems and create collaborative projects.

•	Site visits and dialogue with local human rights defenders, government representatives, youth and local communities, putting human rights concerns into context and exploring practical strategies to achieve change.

•	Fieldwork projects to gain hands-on experience. These projects vary from program to program and have included: mini-internships with local organizations to group projects such as leading educational workshops, interviewing documenting the stories of young activists, and more traditional service projects (such as painting murals, planting trees, and construction projects.)

GYC currently runs human rights delegations in Bosnia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nepal, Rwanda and Venezuela.

Human Rights Learning Communities
A "Learning Community" is an experiential educational process where participants work together to develop common frameworks of understanding, enhance their substantive knowledge of conflict transformation and human rights, strengthen their leadership skills, build supportive peer relationships, and develop collaborative projects to address issues of peace, justice and human rights.

GYC has organized 3-4 day learning communities as part of each of their human rights delegations and has also organized intensive learning communities that last up to two weeks and serve a particular cohort of youth activists. To date, GYC has organized two such intensive learning communities, one for an international group of youth activists from different regions of the world and another specifically for youth activists from different parts of Nepal. In the future, GYC aims to offer an annual global human rights learning community for frontline youth activists.

Solidarity Initiatives
A Solidarity Initiative is a cross-cultural program aimed at bringing together youth leaders from communities and countries in conflict to seek joint solutions to shared problems. The program incorporates three interconnected activities: 1) a human rights learning community; 2) community engagement and action projects; and 3) a reflection and evaluation retreat.   GYC is currently developing new solidarity initiatives to address the Iraqi refugee crisis in Jordan and to work with both indigenous and non-indigenous youth in the U.S. to advance Native American rights.

Quotes
"The young people who do this work are amazingly courageous and passionate. Standing witness and taking action helps shine light on issues and problems that need urgent change. We want to be part of the solution and demonstrate to the world that there are alternatives that work, and work well." --Jennifer Kloes, Executive Director

"How can we expect things to get better if we don't take responsibility for making them better? The work of individuals together can add up to a powerful force for change." --Genevieve Sangudi, GYC co-founder