Youth as Community Builders
Project Investigators
Project Information
This collaboratory is a cross-national project designed to help develop
youth participation in creating community change. This project brings
together young leaders from four community-based youth organizations.
In July of 2001, the collaboratory hosted a four-day workshop in Costa Rica. Two youth leaders from each of the four partner organizations met. At the workshop, participants shared their organizational stories, learned from one another's experiences, developed hands-on skills in participatory research, and plans for documenting their efforts and building a transnational support and action network upon return to their home communities.
As part of the international meeting, one project participant presented formal testimony on violations of young peoples' freedom of speech in Paraguay to the International Human Rights Commission, whose members will - as a result - conduct formal hearings in her home country later this year.
New Directions
The project is also generating new directions for teaching and learning with curricular application. Drawing in part from background research for the project, Dr. Janet Finn has developed a new doctoral course in social work and anthropology entitled "Cultural Perspectives on Adolescence." The course was taught for the first time in Fall 2000, and it drew a diverse interdisciplinary student audience. Dr. Barry Checkoway has developed a new doctoral seminar entitled, "Young People Creating Community Change," which drew directly on the GPY project.
Last updated: 4/28/03
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University of Michigan
Global Program on Youth, School of
Social Work Building, Room 3743
1080 South University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106 ssw.global@umich.edu