World Youth Movement for Democracy

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Resources

Toolkits/Guides:
Activism; Democracy and Participation; Fundraising; Networking

Articles and Reports:
Community Issues; Education; Mobilization for Social Justice

Youth and Democracy Networks

 

Toolkits/Guides

Activism

Action Plan - English - Español - Français -
A civil society toolkit, from CIVICUS, meant for those with little planning experience.
CIVICUS also offers other great civil society toolkits in English, French and Spanish on the following topics: Writing Effectively & Powerfully, Writings Within Your Organization, Producing Your Own Media, Handling the Media, Promoting Your Organization, Planning Overview, Monitoring and Evaluation, Strategic Planning, Developing a Financing Strategy, Financial Controls and Accountability, Writing a Funding Proposal, and Budgeting.
Visit CIVICUS and click on "Resources and Services" then "Civil Society Toolkit

Activist's Handbook - English -
from protest.net
The articles in this handbook are republished from Activism 101 and the Freedom Writer. They tend to be amero-centric, but even with these biases they are a pretty good practical introduction to being politically active.

Guide to Action - English - Español - Français -
from TakingITGlobal - English - Español - Français - Português - Russian - Arabic
This free, downloadable guide to action helps readers explore issues they care about, and suggests ways they can take action and involve others in making a positive difference.

How to Determine Your Desired Outcomes For Change - English -
from ChangeResources.com - English -
Tips on how to determine and refine your desired outcomes so they generate high levels of commitment and align collective action across your organization.

How to Run a Workshop - English -
from networklearning - English - Somali - Français -
A 35 pg long document explaining how to plan a workshop's content and logistics, as well as how to run the workshop. Provides checklists to help in the planning and running of workshop.

Identifying and Understanding the Targets of Your Change - English -
from ChangeResources.com - English -
A tool to help you determine the various groups impacted by your change effort, and identify what they each will need to fully commit to making the change a success.

Organize to Win, A Grassroots Activist's Handbook:
A Guide To Help People Organize Community Campaigns - English -
from Jim Britell
Good, comprehensive text that explains the essential elements of an effective grassroots campaign, gives tips about achieving support, and contains chapters about different lobbying techniques.

Public Achievement Toolbox - English
A collection of resources for coaches, teachers, site organizers and others working with the Public Achievement model of sustainable civic engagement. These tools were developed from the best lessons of community organizing, service learning, and years of Public Achievement practice.

Quick Tips: VMOSA: Defining your Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies and Action Plan - English -
from Community Tool Box - English - Español -

Quick Tips: Recruiting, Retaining and Recognizing Volunteers - English -
from Community Tool Box - English - Español -

Volunteer Sustainability: How Nonprofits Can Sustain Volunteers' Commitment - English -
From Snapshots newsletter that provides research highlights from the Nonprofit Sector Research Fund of the Aspen Institute.

Virtual Activist 2.0 - English -
A detailed guide from Netaction to using email and the internet for building networks, exchanging ideas and information, even for building an organisation. The guide also includes extensive resources, including links to other organisations, and to useful resources eg. media advocacy guides, outreach services etc. The guide also contains basic, step-by-step information on building a website, with related resources and links, as well as information and tips on fundraising, copyright and privacy.

 

Democracy and Participation

 

Child and Youth Participation Resource Guide - English
This annotated bibliography published by UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Office includes key English language documents on children's participation, grouped in four parts:
Part One: Introduction to child and youth participation
Part Two: Children involved in research, analysis, planning, implementation and evaluation
Part Three: Children's participation in programme areas
Part Four: Children involved in political decision making.
Via the Child Rights Information Network (CRIN)

Youth Forum for Democracy and Political Participation - English - Português -
A guide to holding a forum for youth in your community to develop a Local Youth Platform and meet with local political leaders to discuss issues of concern to youth. We strongly encourage WYMD members to hold these events to build unity in local youth groups, engage youth with the political process, and strengthen the influence of youth in local government.

Consider holding one as part of the Global Youth Democracy Campaign...

Increasing Citizen Participation through Advocacy Efforts:
A Guidebook for Program Development - English -
from Access Democracy - English -
Produced by the National Democratic Institute from meetings in 2000, this guidebook contains information on how to improve the organization, implementation and evaluation of advocacy programs, as a means of increasing citizens' political participation.

Making Commitments Matter: A toolkit for young people to evaluate national youth policy - English -
from International Institute for Child Rights and Development - English -
This Toolkit should be used as a starting point for determining what a government, and civil society has done to better the lives of young people. In addition it provides methods for evaluating this progress and also contains concrete tools to further youth work.

An Introduction to Advocacy Training Guide - English -
from USAID Development Experience Clearing House
This guide provides the tools for people to start engaging in the advocacy process, and is thus designed to: inform a diverse audience of potential advocates about advocacy and its methods; build some basic skills in advocacy; increase the use of available data to inform the advocacy process; give confidence to those who are embarking on advocacy efforts; encourage the democratic process by providing people with the skills to make their voices heard.

Communicating with the Public: Message Development and Delivery - English -
From the National Democratic Institute
This workshop focuses on the process of developing an appealing message. It discusses how a message is different from a slogan or a platform, how to identify a receptive target audience, staying on message, and the importance of using appropriate messengers. The workshop also provides concrete tools useful in developing a message, including the "Message Box" and "Issue Saliency Chart." It suggests ways to test and deliver a message and presents examples of successful and unsuccessful messages.

Ten Steps to a Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation System:
A Handbook for Development Practitioners - English -
from the World Bank - English and many more -
An extensive resource related to issues surrounding good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness, and the delivery of tangible results by governments.

Public Participation Toolbox - English -
from Vancouver Community Network
A 10 page document highlighting different tools and techniques of public participation, as well as tips on what to think about and what can go wrong.

 

Fundraising

 

Developing Your Fundraising Strategy, - English - Português - Español -
adapted from the OIYP Skills Pack Fundraising Module, from Oxfam International Youth Parliament
This is an adaptation of a fundraising guide developed by the OIYP for use in their Trade Justice Project. It lays out some basic steps to raising funds for an event, specifically travel to a conference or training.

The Ten Most Important Things You Can Know About Fundraising - English -
from Grassroots Fundraising Journal - English -
A list of the ten most important things about fundraising as far as author Kim Klein is concerned. She does not rank them in any order of importance.

Your Youth is Your Strength - English -
Young people often face problems when trying to fundraise, as potential donors may be reluctant to take them seriously. This short article tackles this very problem, and recommends using youth as a potential draw for donors, rather than as a discincentive to pledge support. The article contains useful advice and tips on fundraising for youth-led organisations. From Taking it Global

Generating Local Funds - English -
Argues that there are many local resources available that are often overlooked by organisations, which tend to be drawn to larger, national sources for funds. This small toolkit contains practical ideas for fundraising, as well as advice on how to make the most of local resources - not just financial, but human and material too. From Taking it Global


Networking

 

Local Networking Guide - English - Português - Español -
The Global Youth Action Network, secretariat of the World Youth Movement for Democracy, has developed a model for local network building as a way of strengthening the global youth movement. The WYMD encourages its participants to use these methods with a focus on democracy and political participation.

A better network: Publishing Local Calendars - English - Português - Español -
from Global Youth Action Network - English - Español - Português -
How to publish a local calendar of youth opportunities and resources.

A better network: Facilitating Collaboration - English
from Global Youth Action Network - English - Español - Português -
Guide youth organizers through the process of holding dialogues on collaboration

A better network: Monthly Dinners - English - Português - Español -
from Global Youth Action Network - English - Español - Português -
Organizing an informal, monthly local gathering of young activists and allies

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents - English - Français - Chinese - Arabic - Farsi
from Reporters Without Borders - English - Español - Français -
A guide designed for bloggers who post news from within authoritarian nations. Since most mainstream media - radio, television, newspapers, etc - faces intense pressure from the state in such environments, bloggers represent one of the few ways to release information about the real situation inside a dictatorship to the outside world.

 

Articles and Reports

 

Community Issues

 

Bringing it Together: Uniting Youth Organising, Development and Services for Long-Term Sustainability - English -
BLOC network
Report by the Movement Strategy Center on how youth organising groups are becoming more involved in addressing the problems that young people face within their communities. The report was conducted through interviewing various groups, and assessing their involvement in improving youth services, or the situation of young people within their communities.

Making Change, Making Space
By the Young Wisdom Project of the Movement Strategy Center
This is the study of five youth-led organisations, what they have learned and how they have developed. The report examines the achievements they have made, challenges they face and also the tools they have developed along the way. The groups have different structures and different approaches to organising, and the report provides an insight into these, which could be a useful resource for anyone working within or considering building a youth-led organistion.

Education

 

Engaging Young People with the Public Achievement Model - English
Article from Serdar Degirmencioglu, of Public Achievement Turkey
A paper which argues that "political disengagement or apathy cannot be construed as young people's problems;. They are in fact problems resulting from schooling of young people in institutions where technical skills are given priority over real-life issues. The resulting lack of participation and informal learning opportunities in young people's lives weakens public institutions and renders them unsustainable. It is argued that learning and participation are key processes for political inclusion and integration of young people in Turkey, across Europe and elsewhere. A model of sustainable civic engagement (Public Achievement) is presented. Public Achievement has been successful in Turkey, USA, N. Ireland, Palestine and Eastern and Central Europe, and the Balkans."
published in Turkish Policy Quarterly

Youth Empowerment: The Contributions and Challenges of Youth-led Research in a High-Poverty, Urban Community - English -
By Yolanda Anyon with Sarah Naughton
Paper which discusses the benefits and challenges of developing a youth-led research program in school. The paper focuses on the YELL project, developed in Oakland, California. The program specifically targets young people from low-income, urban backgrounds and therefore offers a different perspective on youth participation, and program building. Students become engaged in decision-making in school, and within their communities, learning about decision-making and active participation in areas which directly affect them, and over which they have preciously had no control. Discusses issues of poverty, immigration, racism. Taken from Gardner Center

 

Mobilization for Social Justice

 

Youth Source Book on Sustainable Development:
Section 2: Youth Working and Organizing for Action - English -
from the International Institute for Sustainable Development - English -
The Youth Sourcebook contains information on youth's concerns with sustainable development issues, case studies of youth action, together with advice on how to organize for action, useful resource lists, and finally a Directory of international and regional youth organizations.

ReGeneration: Young people shaping the Environmental Justice Movement - English -
By Julie Quiroz-Martinez, Diana Pei Wu and Kristen Zimmerman
This report examines how organisations are engaging in multigenerational movement building across the US, and at the same time examines the ideas and strategies of young people involved in the environmental justice movement. The Movement Strategy Center interviewed organisations with an environmental focus across the country, and examined the integration of youth groups and youth leadership with these organisations, and fouhnd that youth organising and leadership bring energy and new life to the movement.

NAYMOTE Report on the by-election of district # 2, Margibi County (Liberia) - English -
NAYMOTE (National Youth Movement for Transparent Elections - Partners for Democratic Development is a youth-led organisation group of graduates, students leaders, and professionals, which seeks to contribute to building peace and democracy in war ravaged Liberia through civic education, encouraging more civic and political participation of youth and women; voter education for upcoming 2005 elections; training sessions for youth and women to enable them to educate more voters; advocacy for constitutional and electoral reform; and networking with other pro-democracy and human rights groups. The Movement also provides a forum for discussions on many national policy issues related to governance, the role of youth and women in Liberia's democratization process. This is a report on a district by-election in Liberia which NAYMOTE observed. NAYMOTE were also involved in encouraging local participation in the by-election. The report details in brief the activities undertaken, and their success.
Youth and Democracy Networks
Young Liberals and Democrats of Asia
  Youth Human Rights Movement (Russian)