Tim's Blog

The Civicus Youth Assembly has left its mark on the Civicus World Assembly in this statment, presented to delegates in the closing plenary (as well as in young peoples contributions throughout the event).

I'm currently at the Civicus World Assembly, which, for the first time this year, has included the Civicus Youth Assembly.

The Youth Assembly has brought together 130 young people from 65 countries, spending two days before the main assembly exploring global issues, and inputting into the main assembly. The Youth Assembly is a positive step for Civicus on the journey to meaningfully engaging young people in its work, challenging age-based discrimination and drawing on the innovative spirit of youth* - but it also illustrates how essential it is that the rational for engaging young people is clear in each context when it is explored.

There are at least two ways in which young people might engage in the Civicus World Assembly.

Firstly, as young practioners, involved in the same daily struggles and facing the same set of problems as 'adult' world assembly delegates. That is, involved in the building of civil society organisations, in the provision of service, in the development of new sollutions.

The topic of this years Civicus World Assembly is 'Accountability' and I've just been in a plenary session looking at Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and accountability.

During the session I was more and more aware that many of the ideas being explored were those I would understand as issues of participation - rather than accountability... and so I got scribbling trying to put together a model that helps me make sense of how Accountability and Participation relate to each other.

It's very much in draft (word version attached) - but the key intuitions are that:

I'm blogging from the opening plenary at the Civicus World Assembly. (Will try and post some notes and quick reflections as battery allows...)

Speaker Venus Ilagen from Disabled People's International has just put forward a challenge to ask whether the needs of, and accounability to, disabled children features highly enough in talk of Children's Rights, Women's Rights and in other rights dialogues.

Reflecting upon the recent UK draft report on the UN Convetion on the Rights of the Child - it strikes me that Venus has a strong point. An exploration of the rights, and excercise of rights, by young people with disabilities was not a strong thread in the draft. Do we give strong enough attention to the rights of children with disabilities?

I'm currently up in Glasgow at the Civicus Youth Assembly, just about to start at the Civicus World Assembly and I've not yet seen much use of digital technologies to share ideas and media, and to build conversations between participants. We've finally just got use of wireless internet here today (after two days of the Youth Assembly disconnected) - and there is a larger 'Net Cafe' space opening up tomorrow when the 900-strong full World Assembly really gets going - and I'm hoping there might be some suggested use of social media.

However, in case there isn't, I've decided to experment with how social media use can be catalysed. Can social bookmarking, photo sharing and back-channels work effectively at non-techie conferences? What is needed to make them work? Is there value in making it work?

I'm starting off by seeking to encourage use of two tags for agregating links and content:

Youth Assembly: civicusya2007

World Assembly: civicuswa2007