In the weekend of 30 April – 01 May 2011, the ICMYO Task Force met at the World Scout Bureau in Geneva, Switzerland.
The members of the Task Force are a group of organisations of ICMYO who volunteer their efforts in service to ICMYO to plan the Yearly Meeting. Currently composed of the European Youth Forum (YFJ), Pax Romana – IMCS, World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), they have been encouraging active involvement of the participating organisations to the various processes and opportunities throughout the year and encouraging coordination between organisations.
Since the previous Yearly Meeting, held in Helsinki, Finland, the Task Force promoted participation of representatives coming from International Youth NGOS at the Europe-Africa Youth Summit, and more recently, the opportunity for trainers and participants for the Global Youth Work Training Course (GYWTC) at the 3 rd African University on Youth and Development (AUYD).
Their main task each year is the planning of the ICMYO Yearly Meeting. Since early this year, the Task Force has been engaging the participating organisations in a consultation of the agenda items for this year’s meeting. As ICMYO has decided to hold its 8th meeting around the United Nations High Level Meeting (HLM) on Youth, the Task Force focused its work at this in-person meeting on developing possible strategies for the best possible participation, contribution, and outcome at the HLM.
In their evaluation o f ICMYO’s coordination efforts to promote youth participation in decision-making processes at the inter-governmental level, the Task Force emphasizes that this lead-up toward the HLM on Youth is an invaluable opportunity for youth leaders and youth organisations to make a real impact in the international youth agenda for coming generations. In order to this, however, youth organisations must strongly mobilise their collective efforts and involve their membership at all levels.
The Task Force strongly believes in the potential of collective representation of millions of young people and that they can make the voice of young people heard during this International Year of Youth.
Young people have something to say about our hopes and needs! Are you ready to make it heard by the governments of the world?