The International Youth Conference, and two workshops were held prior to the start of the 8th Global Conference on Human Development. Following are their reports.

International Youth Conference on Human Development

Prepared by
Deepak Adhikari
Deepak Adhikari is a member of ICA Nepal

128 youths from different parts of the earth assembled at Kathmandu to discuss leadership and change representing the fourteen different countries. The opportunity was provided by the Institute of Cultural Affairs International in partnership with ICA Nepal. ICA Nepal hosted the 8th Global conference on Human Development (29th October to 2nd November 2012). The international youth conference was a part of this conference.

Youth Conference on Human Development offered an opportunity for young people from around the world to meet and work to identify the role of youth in human development. Youths are a major change agent in our socie-ty. The conference mainly focused on youth issues in the local and international context.


Thematic issues discussed and major resolutions of the conference


Promoting Youth Leadership for Change
The main vocation of this theme was to foster youths in decision making processes. To ensure sustainable change we must guarantee the involvement of youths in every aspect of human development.

The theme was lead by Professor Robertson Work, New York University, and the group was facilitated by Mr. Kevin Balm, a senior facilitator from ICA Australia. Some of the findings are given below:

Leadership must be facilitative and encouraging
Must Inspire to be positive directed, transform thoughts, reframe mind sets, integrate courage to lead, Building for the better Team work
With Leadership role in Research and Development in pertinent issues and proper information dissemination

Visioning Sustained Planet Earth
The primary suffering the earth is facing today is changing climate due to environmental degradations caused by human activities. Today’s youths need to find a way to tackle these issues. How we can keep our earth sustainable for generations, given the current pace of economic development, is the prime anxiety for today’s youths.
We have to find leadership solutions for sustainable changes both in financial and environmental aspects.
This theme was lead by Mr. Anil Chitrakar, an environmental activist in Nepal. Ms. Pat Druckenmiller was co-theme leader.

The major findings of the theme discussion:
Policy advocacy for:
1. Taxation of carbon emission 2. Carbon reduction compensation.
1-10 policy (1 household to plant 10 trees.)
Policy of 4R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) must be followed.
Promoting of organic farming,
Promoting carbon reduction technologies,
Garbage management programs,
Roof gardening,
Advocacy for natural resources in social development policy.
Wildlife conservation,
Free education and improved health care
Advocating national and international budgets for conservation

Rising Influence of Social Networking Sites
and its Impact on Youths
Globalization and technological de-velopment are creating rapid changes in society via various social networking sites and digital technolo-gies. Youth in the community get attracted by the glamour of these changes mainly. Due to the rapid devel-opment of technologies and the attraction of youth to these technologies, the earth appears like a small vil-lage. There are arguments both for and against the effects of these technologies on the mind of youths.

This theme was lead by Mr. Allen Bilochan Tuladhar from Microsoft Innovation Centre Nepal and helped by Llyod Philbrook from Philippines.

Major findings of the theme:
Social media has to be social inclusive of educative than entertainment focused
Kindness campaign can be started for the change and revolution
Petitions and causes campaign from and to government including social interaction with youth and community,
Government initiative towards portals that are well updated and resourceful
Youth information centres all across Nepal being web access can have small to extensive trainings
Local to national interaction through social media to bring attention to governments and international Communities.

Encouraging Youth Volunteerism for Local Development
The multicultural world is growing rapidly. To ensure harmony, we should help local development by promoting volunteerism among youths. Youth volunteers can contribute to cultural exchanges and mutual understanding. They can play a crucial role in local change.

This theme was lead by Mr. Dilendra Raj Shrestha, District Governor Elect Rotary International District 3292 Nepal.  Mr. Krishnan Sinnaiah from Applied Scholastic Malaysia and Ms. Staci Kentish from ICA Canada supported Mr. Shrestha.

Some of the major resolutions of the theme are as follows:
Request volunteerism policy and engage unemployed youth as volunteers.
Promote public services engaging youth as volunteers.
Increase the number of benefits for the volunteers.
Assuming social responsibility to encourage youth volunteerism for local development
Enhance self-esteem, sense of usefulness and inclusiveness in youth.
Nurture youth to be caring and responsible citizens.
In conclusion, volunteerism can be used as a tool to encourage significant and profound engagement among youth in building the community and nation as a whole.

Piloting

Youth as facilitative leaders (YFL) Programme:
To address the finding of the conference ICA Nepal is going to kindle a small youth initiation. A team of youths has been active as YFL members under the guidance of ICA Nepal management for the last two years. They are involved in volunteer services like awareness creation and community development.

We aim to increase the number of members and broaden the areas of work of this group. The existing YFL team will be active as a national level network. We will form five different teams in regional headquarters of our country under the leadership of this national level network. The leadership of the network will be changed regularly. One coordinator will be chosen for the whole group. Five regional coordinators will be responsible for the regional level. The leadership will be changed every two years.

The YFL team will basically focus on issues like sustainable development, advocacy of youth leadership; community based social entrepreneurship, health sanitation and HIV AIDS awareness. We will promote awareness in various sectors from the social media campaigning for the sustainable and positive change.  We will work for the Global youth Network by creating the connection between the YFLs of ICA all over the world and other youth initiations and organizations. The ultimate goal of the YFL in Nepal is to create a platform for both national level the global interactions and exchanges of learning and dialogues for the positive transformation and harmony.