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Save the Children Youth

Youth involvement within Save the Children

Background

In 2007, a questionnaire was undertaken by Save the Children Youth Groups resulting in a mapping of youth involvement within Save the Children. The questionnaire was sent out to all the Save the Children CEOs and organisations. Those answering the questionnaire had a variety of positions in Save the Children. In total, the mapping resulted in data from 23 Member organisations.

How youth are active in Save the Children

About 80% of Member organisations say they have active young people in their organisation. About 70% have active youth between 7-18 years old and 50% between 18-30 years old. Most often youth are active in Save the Children local youth groups/clubs, in special youth projects or in peer-to-peer education campaigns. Save the Children coordinates these activities, but often the youth are a part of the decision-making and construction of the project. Examples are anti-bullying groups in schools or training of volunteers to become peer-to-peer educators.

Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Japan, Spain and Fiji have their own youth organisations. They differ greatly in size and how they are organised, but are all child and youth-led. With the exception of Spain all are also independent.

In Save the Children UK youth are involved in many different ways in the whole organisational structure and activities. For example, they have been part of the creation of SC UK's new brand and in the formation of their internal communications strategy.

Opinions about youth involvement

A majority of Member organisations, 69%, are not satisfied with their level of youth involvement. A lot of the organisations have, however, recently started new activities and initiatives in order to increase youth involvement; for example by recruiting Youth Coordinators or starting children clubs/boards. A majority of Member organisations, 64%, say that it is not difficult to know how to involve youth, but that they do not have enough resources or that they themselves are in a relatively small organisation and therefore it is difficult to know where in the organisation to start involving children.
 
About 50% of Members have a specific "youth policy". By this they mean, for example, a specific budget and goal for youth participation, youth coordinators, supporting the youth organisation both with funding and other resources, etc.

A high percentage of Member organisations, 85%, say that they should work more on directly involving more youth in their activities. 92% wish to receive input on how to increase youth involvement. Many of them mention "best practice" exchange with other Member organisations

Opinions about youth involvement and the Alliance

When asked if they think that International Save the Children Alliance should work more on how to directly involve young people, 92% answer yes. Some of the comments are to organize international exchanges for youth and get youth more involved in Save the Children global campaigns.

Conclusions

There are youth activities going on in many Member organisations around the world. The youth are active in different ways, but mostly in youth groups or through special youth projects like peer-to-peer- educations campaigns. A large majority of the Member organisations want to increase their youth involvement. To do this they think that input in how to better involve youth from other Member organisations, and exchange between active youth are good ways. They also wish for the Alliance to focus more on getting more youth involved.

Further steps

The results from the mapping shows us that there is obviously a lot that needs to be done concerning youth involvement in Member organizations. While we in the Nordic Cooperation are not able to represent all the young people who are active in Save the Children, we have started a process of discussing how we want youth to get more involved in Member organizations as well as in the work of the Alliance and we can clearly see that there is a need for a strong support and action concerning youth involvement in Save the Children. We see the possibility for Save the Children to be one of the few NGOs that really takes the opinions and commitment of young people seriously at all levels of the organization. We think that the perspective of youth involvement should be more visible in the Alliance and that Members need to give priority to the support and involvement of young people in the organizations. We wish to see more youth activity on the local level in all Member organizations and pushing for that should be an important issue for the Alliance.

Nordic Cooperation - Save the Children Youth in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark

Tove Jonsson, President, Rädda Barnens Ungdomsförbund, Sweden
Mari Sognnæs Andersen, President, PRESS - Redd Barna Ungdom, Norway
Charlotte Aggerholm, President, Red Barnet Ungdom, Denmark
Leena-Kaisa Niemi, National Youth Coordinator, Save the Children Finland
Frida Mörtlund, International Youth Coordinator, Save the Children Youth Denmark, Norway and Sweden