https://forum-ids.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IAVE-Forum-Challenge-Pa...
This paper was jointly commissioned by the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) and the International Forum for Volunteering in Development (Forum). It forms part of IAVE’s series of challenge papers on youth volunteering, and also as the framing paper for Forum’s IVCO 2023 conference: A New Generation of Volunteers as Changemakers. Find links to the other challenge papers and IVCO 2023 resources at the end of the paper.
As the world faces the existential threat of the climate emergency and persistence of global injustice and inequality, young people are increasingly seen as key players in meeting these challenges. This is not only because they face the consequences of past generations’ actions, but also because they bring energies, dynamism and innovations. Volunteering by young people sits alongside diverse forms of activism, advocacy and youth organising as a critical mechanism for achieving change. But does the celebration of youth volunteering in policy-making, organisational strategies and social media reflect an approach that places young people as changemakers? Or does it offer cover for a reluctance to change, decolonise and democratise? This paper explores these questions and presents a set of critical challenge issues for thinking about enabling youth volunteers to be the changemakers the world so badly needs. The first section of the paper sets the context and background for this challenge. It explores existing research and other literatures that document youth volunteering for sustainable development, the diversity of forms of engagement, some of the existing institutional frameworks that focus on youth involvement in volunteer spaces and gaps in knowledge. The second part analyses primary data collected through short interviews with key stakeholders involved with youth volunteers as changemakers, including youth-focused organisations and international nongovernmental organisations, as well as researchers. It brings this evidence into dialogue with existing literatures and debates to explore three core questions: a. How are young people volunteering, and how do they want to volunteer? b. How can organisations develop programs that are truly youth-led? c. How can we create a more conducive enabling environment for youth volunteering?
