Youth Mainstreaming as a Strategic Tool for Youth Development

This paper has was produced as an outcome of the Commonwealth Youth Division/Youth Programme stakeholder meeting held on April the 3rd,2008. It represents a strategy, rationale, and action plan for mainstreaming youth issues. Mainstreaming is not just about recruiting young people as volunteers, interns and junior staff members. It is about a deeper transformation that makes them central in the work of the organization. An organization that has engaged in the process of mainstreaming of youth will recognize that young people are not just an add-on to programmes and social interventions.