At this time, a global youth policy portal and community is being developed here at youthpolicy.org, aiming to consolidate knowledge and information on youth policies. We understand youth policies as policies pertaining to young people’s rights and realities that range across the entire policy cycle – from analysis and policy formulation to policy implementation and evaluation. Are you a youth work practitioner? A youth researcher? A youth policy maker? A youth activist? A youth trainer with a liking for policy? A youth policy evaluator with a knack for nonformal education? A teacher, doubling as a youth worker? We are looking for all of the above and more to reflect the variety of actors in the broad field of youth policy!

Youthpolicy.org will feature a knowledge repository and an online community, allowing youth policy actors from across the globe to share and access information, to interact and exchange, to discuss and co-operate. Youthpolicy.org will depend on its own community of volunteers, ranging from administrators to practitioners, from researchers to policy makers. With this call, we would like to bring together a visionary team of committed youth policy enthusiasts to guide and support the kickoff phase at youthpolicy.org.

You:

• are passionate about the idea of connecting youth policy actors globally?
• know from experience that a good youth policy knowledge base is long overdue?
• have a good overview of youth policies in one or several countries or regions of the world?
• are confident with new media, including online communities, or excited to dive in and learn quickly?
• have some experience with Wikipedia-style knowledge portals or are curious about them?
• have a few hours a week to share during the coming months, in particular in May, June and July 2011?

We:

• are Demokratie & Dialog, a Berlin-based NGO building youthpolicy.org with initial support from the Open Society Foundations.
• are looking for youth policy afficionados from across the globe to guide and support us in the kickoff phase in 2011.
• intend to begin the development of youthpolicy.org with youth policy fact sheets in a collective wiki at www.youthpolicy.org.
• would like to have initiated a strong, informed and lively volunteer community of youth policy actors by the end of 2011.

You would like to be part of shaping youthpolicy.org from the beginning?

We would like for you to be part of it from the beginning, too :)

At www.youthpolicy.org/join we have prepared a few questions to give us an idea of your motivation, experience and time — it shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.

We are looking forward to meeting you!