Y4PT, advancing on the fundamental unemployment issue

A few days ago I met Novia Salcedo representatives, whose headquarters are in Bilbao.  At our siege in Brussels, we talked about creating a possible partnership for many interesting different projects , all related to a fundamental issue of these years: the situation of helplessness and youth unemployment which is an unacceptable scourge for the people of the second decade of 21st century.

The idea is to be on board for the International Campaign for Youth Employment Decade 2013-2016 and, secondly, to have young people from Spain developing and collaborating with us on the light of our Employouth tool’ development.

The International Campaign for Youth Employment Decade 2013-2016  is an initiative of the civil society born in Spain,  with an objective to generate an international movement of reflection, thought, debate and action, that provides ideas, content and solutions for the unemployment situation or the situation of no decent employment that millions of youths are experiencing in hundreds of places across the world.
The final objective of this Campaign is for the United Nations General Assembly to declare 2019-2028 ‘Youth Employment Decade’ as an opportunity to drive the economic and social transformation of organizations and countries.

Novia Salcedo believe that the solution to the big problems that global society is facing needs to go hand in hand with big and feasible dreams. Y4PT do believe so, too!

In this dream, action-solution, they suggest beginning with a proposal for economic and social change on three levels – people-organisations-society-, towards one more inclusive. And they make this proposal taking as a guiding thread the integration of youths in the human, economic and social development by launching specific actions on a global scope, compatible and complementary with those of a local scope in order to reduce youth unemployment that we all face across the world. Therefore, they are talking about an important exercise of Social Innovation at a global level. We’d love to be on board with our Y4PT Foundation.

To successfully carry out this ambitious project it is necessary to reconcile many allies,  some within reach of NSF but others not. That is why we need the cooperation of multiple local and global agents, governmental and no-governmental, that go along with us through the different facets of the project, with a multidirectional cooperation model that help us achieve the objectives we are pursuing.

To lay out social innovations of this significance requires a high impact operation, that is exciting and in which we can all be involved. Given the extreme severity of youth unemployment we can no longer look away.

It is time to decide. We owe them answers.

Concretely,Y4PT will be also very happy  to accompany for a long period one or more youth from Spain, selected by Novia Salcedo, in order for them to start learning technical and transversal competencies, developing our Employouth International Job Bank in the field of  Sustainable Mobility. This Youth from Spain will undergo with us thorugh a geographical mobility and an exchange of knowledge with all the other Y4PT representatives around the world and by doing sowe are  offering them a kind of worldwide “ coaching and learning” experience.

Alessandra Gorini

What is the Youth Employment Decade?  

The Youth Employment Decade expects that the geographic area where it is implemented includes municipalities, regions, countries, public and private entities, non-profit and profit organisations, networks related to youth and/or employment, academic institutions, religious institutions, unions, governments, etc. that are developing activities within this framework.

That is, the Decade will take place anywhere in the world where, through different initiatives and activities promoted by the civil society or in cooperation with the public sector, there is a wish to join in the achievement of its objectives, including:

1. Make a call to attention at the highest political and social levelabout the current situation of youth unemployment across the world.
   2. To promote efforts in order to comply with the international commitments entered into with regards to employment and decent jobs.
   3. To open participating spaces and intergenerational and intercultural dialogue among youth and the political and social authorities to address the issue of unemployment with the challenges and the potentials of youths themselves.
   4. Suggest priorities, content and lines of action in the political, social and economic fields to combat youth unemployment and no decent jobs, including gender discrimination.
   5. Point the attention toward policies and proactive activities that guarantee sustainable management of the access of youth to the labour market in the long term, both in terms of quality and quantity.
   6. To promote research, creation of knowledge and interchange of good practices with regards to youth employment.
   7. To undertake action to increase awareness of the society as a whole about the risks and consequences of youth unemployment and its role in the eradication of poverty and in the economic and social transformation and growth of countries.
   8. To achieve the commitment, cooperation and investment from all agents involved during not only the decade 2019-2028, but also beyond.

In the mid-term these objectives will be transformed into results, preferably quantifiable (so as to never again return to massive unemployment, sudden changes of income distribution and generational inequality, indicators of social cohesion and participation, public welfare, no decent jobs, gender discrimination, etc.). And create an organisational structure able to respond and guarantee the celebration of the Youth Employment Decade in the world in accordance with their objectives and results through the activities, projects or programs that are defined for each level -local, regional, national, international- involved in it.