Posted
on August 12, 2015
The
theme of this year's International Youth Day is “Youth Civic
Engagement.” It's all about getting young people to participate in
society – politically, economically, and socially.
Unfortunately,
right now many schools and societies generally seem to be set up to
keep young people AWAY from participating, except as rather passive
consumers.
Most young people in the world are not allowed to vote,
but many young people are discouraged from engaging in politics in
any way – possibly because so many parents and teachers are
concerned about things such as football wins and test scores.
Societies in general put roadblocks in the way of kids starting
businesses or getting jobs. And schools generally act to limit their
students' social lives – keeping kids and teens not only
partitioned off from the rest of society, but also keeping kids and
teens of different ages away from each other.
Without
anyone necessarily trying to limit opportunities for Youth Civic
Engagement, the United Nations states that such opportunities are
often “low or non-existent.”
And
yet most people realize that we want young adults to participate
actively in making money, holding down jobs and starting businesses,
inventing and discovering new things, voting and otherwise
participating in government. We have campaigns to register young
voters and then, of course, to actually vote. We wring our hands over
young adults who can't or won't move out of their parents' homes and
who can't or won't get full-time employment, with benefits. We shake
our heads over the fact that many 20-somethings don't seem to respect
or even like people who are older or younger than them.
In
my opinion, we should encouraging young people to participate in the
whole of society all through childhood and adolescence – and then
we will surely have young adults who are more engaged and connected!
Having
a day to talk about the importance of this can only be a good thing!
Check
out this map of International Youth Day events. As sparse as
the events are in the United States, I did discover one near me!
Also
on this date:
Plan ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest boards for:
And
here are my Pinterest boards for:
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