By Iminza Keboge
Published November 5, 2019
Did you know that November 4 – 10, 2019 is being observed as Youth Work Week across the world with the aim of empowering people who work with and among the youth?
This Youth Work Week is meant to bring into sharper focus the challenges young people face in the 53-member countries of the Commonwealth some of which include eastern Africa’s Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda.
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“By recruiting and placing appropriately trained and properly supported youth workers, communities in Commonwealth countries can help young people channel their energies and talent in positive directions, especially during the transition from education into work,” says Patricia Scotland, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth. “Supported by positive role models and with mentors to whom they can relate, young people can be guided towards healthy and productive lives.”
Scotland argues that “Population growth means that there are now more young people in the Commonwealth than ever before, and this offers choices and challenges for all involved in planning and making policy, and for young people themselves. The combined population of the Commonwealth is now 2.4 billion, of which more than 60 per cent are aged 29 or under, and one in three between the ages of 15 and 29.”
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She says the organisation she leads has since the 1970s “supported member states with provision of education and training for youth workers, who have a central role to play in encouraging, enabling, and empowering young people. Practitioners may be of any age, and operate in many settings: youth clubs, parks, schools, prisons, hospitals, on the streets and in rural areas.”
While “youth work is a distinct profession, acknowledged in policy and legislation to deliver and certify quality of practice, including through education and training”, Scotland says, “there is little or no youth work activity – formal or informal” in many others.”
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Besides working with member countries in equipping youth workers with requisite academic–Commonwealth Degree and Diploma in Youth Work–and technical skills with which to empower young people, Scotland says the Commonwealth bloc is “supporting the global collectivisation of youth work professionals through the emerging Commonwealth Alliance of Youth Workers’ Associations (CAYWA), an international association of professional associations dedicated to advancing youth work across the Commonwealth, Scotland says the Commonwealth works with member countries.
Arguing that young people can lead healthy and productive lives if supported by positive role models and with mentors to whom they can relate, Scotland says “CAYWA facilitates the cross-pollination of ideas and collegial support among youth work practitioners, and is developing into a unified global influence providing support to governments and all stakeholders in youth work profession.”
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