Hi GKD List Members, List members seeking a site to engage with youth on development issues might find TakingITGlobal useful...
TakingITGlobal is a fully youth-run initiative that develops knowledge networks for the youth movement, providing a shared platform for networks like the Youth Employment Summit, Global Youth Service Day, the WSSD Youth Caucus etc etc. Our global online community, where our technology and membership converges at <http://www.TakingITGlobal.org> involves more than more than 12,000 young people in 190+ countries. Our goal is not only to provide a platform for communication and collaboration, but also to mobilize youth in development programs (with networking, advocacy and capacity building components) in partnership with specialist international organizations - for example, our "Youth Creating Digital Opportunties" partnership with IISD, the GKP and others <www.ycdo.net> On the specific issue of water, we have a discussion board on Water, so maybe you could create 'topics/threads' in that discussion board and post a message to start each discussing the major issues you brought up (irrigation, groundwater, etc.) You can click "click here to discuss this event" on the "World Water Forum" page on our site to access the Water Discussion Board, and it is also accessible from the discussions on sustainable development. <http://www.takingitglobal.org/opps/event.html?eventid=2011> . We've had conversations with International Year of Freshwater about doing something more substantial but at the moment it's really a situation of not having the resources. Margaret Grieco suggested a donor should support development of a resource/initiative like this. My comment would be that very few donors fund youth participation like this (ongoing, actually youth-led, not event-based etc) at an international level... Or when they do, they develop programs in house (by adults, often the PR department!), waste resources, and the projects typically fail after a year or two of inactivity/stagnation. Youth really need an international fund to support efforts like that which the Surdna Foundation do on a purely national level in the US <http://www.surdna.org/programs/citizenry.html> and which other groups like Soros do on a very piecemeal basis. But to begin, we encourage you to check out TIG! Cheers Nick Nick Moraitis Strategy and Partnership Coordinator TakingITGlobal - Toronto, Canada http://profiles.takingitglobal.org/nick [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
