URL: http://www.blog4dialogue.org

Blog for Dialogue and Mutual Understanding is a youth initiative aims to write a global youth declaration to be presented during the International Year of Youth Conference that will be held on 11th August 2011 before the UN and all world leaders.

This Blog Aims to work on unifying young people’s voices and make them agree on a youth declaration that includes the problems that young people and civil societies face, and the difficulties and challenges they have to deal with.

This will be done from our, young people, perspective. In addition to this, we will present suggestions and solutions that we think they can contribute to overcoming such challenges that we face in our societies. All young people will write, think and most importantly discuss the challenges they find, and talk about what is missing in their communities to achieve progress from their point of view.

This Blog is an open space for young people from all over the world, where they can express their opinions and write about their problems and challenges from youth and societal angles.

This Blog will continue to work for 9 months starting from 11th November 2010 till finalizing the global declaration. During those 9 months, there will be different stages:

Firstly, there is the brainstorming stage, which will extend for 5 months. During that period, there will be a long and open discussion among young people to come up with the elements of the global declaration. Those elements will be based upon our own issues and societal issues that we have discussed, and will be reached through our long open discussions about such challenges.

Followed by this stage, there will be another one of the same importance which will last for a month. During that period, the process of writing the first draft of our global paper will start.

The draft will be shown again to all young people from all over the world through an open petition that will extend for one month to agree on the elements and the content of the declaration through an electronic and interactive voting system.

At the very end, writing the unified global youth Declaration in its final version will follow as the last stage. The Declaration will be presented before the UN, all world leaders, and all of those people who are interested in young people and their issues. In this way, we will present a youth declaration written by young people themselves and not by experts or leaders. In this way, we will present our ideas ourselves to experts and leaders, so that the declaration will be discussed and some of its elements will be agreed upon and ratified so that they can be put into action.

The International Year of youth (IYY), In an effort to harness the energy, imagination and initiative of the world’s youth in overcoming the challenges facing humankind, from enhancing peace to boosting economic development, the United Nations proclaimed last December 18 and unanimously adopted by the United Nations, at the initiative of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the “August 2010-2011” an International Year of Youth starting on 12 August 2010.

In its resolution proclaiming the Year, the General Assembly called on governments, civil society, individuals and communities worldwide to support activities at local and international levels to mark the event. Under the theme ‘Dialogue and Mutual Understanding,’ the Year aims to encourage dialogue and understanding across generations and promote the ideals of peace, respect for human rights and freedoms, and solidarity.

This Blog is an initiative of What’s up Youth "WupY", in collaboration with The United Nations Youth Association of Tunisia and The United Nations Youth Association of Lebanon, and in partnership with many youth organizations and youth initiatives from all over the world.