There are examples everywhere, locally and globally, of kids empowering themselves to advocate for a better future for their communities and the world. The particular issues may differ as well as the context, however, the overall goal is to ensure that youth input has a significant voice in decision-making that will shape their lives in the 21st century.

It is estimated that by the year 2000, the U.S. population under the age of 18 will be 71,789,000. Kids definitely count; and, they are doing something about it -- responsibly and with a great deal of creative energy.

They are publishing magazines, such as the Children's Express which tackles issues of importance to youth, such as education, families, diversity, homelessness, safety, and teen pregnancy.

They are registering voters like the multi-national Third Wave organization. Inspired by the Freedom Rides of the early 60's, 120 young people registered more than 20,000 new voters in a cross-country voter registration drive.

They are taking on the United Nations via Rescue Mission which took as its first project, a Young People's edition of Agenda 21 called, Rescue Mission: Planet Earth, which involved 10,000 children in 75 countries. Their current project is the creation of the Sustainable Development Indicators for Youth.

In Detroit, a multigenerational, intergenerational youth movement is rebuilding Detroit by planting urban gardens, turning vacant lots into playgrounds...determined to make Detroit a better place to live, while learning leadership skills.

Outraged by the French nuclear testing in the South Pacific, Japanese students mounted a campaign in cyberspace with a chain letter over the information superhighway. Their "Stop Nuclear Testing" home page has fostered 10 WWW sites devoted to a global protest against nuclear testing.

In New Haven, Connecticut, The Natural Guard, a youth organization transforms vacant lots into organic vegetable gardens with produce for soup kitchens and shelters, as well as organizes water quality monitoring, plants trees to beautify neighborhoods.

Two youth groups that we will feature in more depth are the Seattle Youth Involvement Network and the Ke Ala Hoku in Hawaii.


Seattle

The Seattle Youth Involvement Network (SYIN) came into existence during Seattle Youth Summits which were set-up in 1991 to provide youth a forum for discussing education, neighborhoods, and the future of the city. The participants expressed frustration at the one-shot appeals for their input while adults promised to do the rest. They wanted follow-through and help.

Supported, in part, by Mayor Norman Rice and The Boeing Company, SYIN has grown to become a private, nonprofit community organization. Its mission is catalyzing opportunities for youth involvement in service and leadership, and supporting youth-initiated projects. It offers training and technical assistance to young people and young professionals, serves as a clearinghouse for information on current youth programs, builds coalitions, and raises public consciousness about the positive contributions made by young people.

An example project is the summer youth employment project to collect youth input to the Seattle Comprehensive Plan. In 1993, young people spent the summer talking with other youth around the city to obtain their input and responses to the 20-year plan for the city's future.

The Plan, Toward a Sustainable Seattle, is a vision for managing the growth of Seattle to 2014. The goals of the youth project were a desire to have meaningful input in planning their city's future, to collaborate with the city Planning Department, to provide valuable training and experience in the community participation process, and to create a model for meaningful youth involvement in the city's planning process.

Youth and children of all ages were surveyed and made recommendations for planning: housing/neighborhood quality, parks and recreation, and for transportation. Age appropriate workshops were designed to address each age group's level of understanding.

The Seattle Youth Report was presented to the Department of Construction and Land Use in August 1993.

Currently underway is a Youth Involvement Toolbox full of tip sheets to help youth and adults work better together.


Hawai'i

Ke Ala Hoku, "charting the course," is a community benchmarking project. The goals were simply to create a vision of what Hawai'i should be, and then, develop benchmarks, or indicators to measure progress in achieving that vision.

Funded by a collaboration of business and human service agencies - a public/private partnership, Ke Ala Hoku is a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach to benchmarking. It is grassroots and intergenerational with youth and adults working together at every level of planning and action. It is based on a vision created by 6,000 youth across the state for the kind of Hawai'i they wanted to live in.

Via a process of state-level forums, county-wide focus groups, meetings and events, a vision statement mapped the course in thirteen areas: environment, safety, development, economy, education, preservation, society, drugs, native Hawaiians, transportation, recreation, health, and technology.

The next step was the selection of 58 critical indicators to track progress towards that vision. Currently, benchmarks are being established for all indicators.

Kara Palmer of Sustainable Seattle and Alan AtKisson, formerly co-founder of Sustainable Seattle and presently program director of Redefining Progress - a San Francisco think tank in sustainable indicators, were featured speakers in helping to clarify the indicator process.

Both SYIN and Ke Ala Hoku reflect the vital contributions that youth are making to redefine the future of their communities and the role of youth in achieving a better future.