The day before the April 16
th, 2009 official IFS Board meeting in Toronto, Canada, some of the board members met to give their perspective on the plans for a new IFS Youth Program. Yvonne had prepared a summary based on the preliminary planning done by Pim van Dam and Wim Ruijper of the Stichting Just-Do-It Foundation, which is an IFS member organization. A few important decisions were made during the meeting and were supported at the official board meeting the next day. In order to have adequate time to raise funds and design a thoughtful, well-constructed initiative, it was decided that the first gathering of young people will begin in the spring of 2010.
The time line for the three programmes is as follows:
October 2010: New York City, USA
Spring 2011: Utrecht, Netherlands
Autumn 2011: Berlin, Germany
The overall project goal is to establish a leadership development and training programme that will enable 50 plus young people to overcome social, economic and geographic obstacles, educational difficulties and cultural differences. This IFS project will be hosted by one of the IFS member organizations in Berlin and will include at least five main partner organizations. The practical work will be done by staff of the Stichting Just-do-it Foundation. We decided that they will send papers of commitment to the interested IFS members. Currently there are approximately 10 organizations that have expressed an interest in sending four youth and one youth-leader to take part in the project.
Young people who want to participate:
- need to speak English
- need to be between 18-25 years old
- Will have to take part on all three events
- Will have to be supported by a member of IFS
- Will have to be willing to develop their own activities in their home countries by using the knowledge they gain during the program
- Will take part in internet discussions in the periods in between events
- Need to pay a small participant fee each event (we estimate € 50,--, depending on how much we receive from other funding sources)
There are numerous issues to be addressed and the Stichting Just-Do-It staff will keep members informed on progress.
One issue is that there is a chance that too many young people will want to participate. Our goal is to work with between 50 and 75 participants from at least eight countries.
Of significance is the issue of financing this new youth project. It was a major discussion item during the board meeting. If we have the commitment of enough organizations we can apply for European money, which can be uses for a part of the traveling expenses. This percentage is higher for European participants, than for participants coming from outside Europe. We agreed that these participants will look into other funding possibilities. Also, we will make an effort to secure some overall sponsoring for the project. At present, we have some sponsoring to help with the initial work.
More news about the youth project will be posted on this website by Stichting Just-do-it. You can also contact Yvonne Olsen at the IFS office at
olseny@mcwmn.org or Jan Buijze at
j.buijze@doenjadienstverlening.nl
For more information contact:
stichtingjdi@gmail.com