The majority of the one billion young people, ages 15 to 24, who live on the planet today are leading healthy lives—studying, working, volunteering, and playing positive roles in their communities. Yet all too often, they are portrayed in a negative light. Media headlines emphasize drug and alcohol abuse among youth, teen pregnancy, the rise in youth gangs, or school dropout rates and often leave it at that. Even when the media’s message about youth is positive, it often conveys the idea that youth are "the leaders of tomorrow." As adults, we are encouraged to invest in the young today so that they will have the skills and resources they will need in the future. Such thinking obscures the fact that young people are already making solid contributions to others—tutoring younger children, protecting the environment, starting their own businesses, and leading new initiatives to improve their communities. Yet these contributions are frequently overlooked, with young voices going unheard. Even more regrettably, the vast potential for young people to further contribute to their communities goes largely untapped.

From the beginning, the International Youth Foundation (IYF) has pursued a positive approach to youth development that applies holistic strategies to the complex set of child and youth needs worldwide. This approach recognizes that we need to ensure young people develop the skills, values, and attitudes they need to succeed today, not just tomorrow. It also recognizes that young people are not problems to be solved, but problem solvers themselves. This paradigm emphasizes that youth are assets to the community, and active agents of change who can contribute their energy, idealism, and insights to a community’s growth and progress. They are not merely passive recipients of programs and support. That’s why IYF emphasizes programs and strategies that promote youth participation in schools,
communities, and places of work. And that’s why we include youth participation as a key indicator of a youth program’s success. Yet as critical as youth participation is to the notion of positive youth development, it remains a subject that defies easy description. What does youth participation mean in different cultures? What inhibits or encourages youth participation? What attitudes do young people and adults hold when it comes to ensuring young people a greater voice in decision making? How does lack of access to technology hinder youth’s ability to participate on a national or global scale? What lessons have we learned from existing youth participation programs worldwide? These are some of the questions explored in this paper. Through the nine case studies highlighted there, each written by authors of different ages and perspectives, we can begin to see both the challenges and opportunities of engaging young people in meaningful ways in society. 
 

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