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Rethinking Youth Participation For Social Development and Community Strengthening
JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
and engage socially marginalized youth who is also often considered also at risk. As Yee
(2008) argues, “youth organising has proven particularly effective at engaging diverse
youth, particularly youth of color” (cited in Christens & Dolan, 2011: 529). Organised ac-
tivities give often the chance to young people to express their opinions about important
matters, as well as make them active in decision making processes. As a result, young
people get to exercise power and agency and at the same time challenge other sources
of power in order to make an impact and change realities in their communities or even
larger scale. Such organisations, which focus their efforts for example on environmental,
political, economic matters etc. can be of different nature. In the 21
st
century there is
especially a great deal of effort needed in terms of environmental issues and the youth
is central in such topics, since they are going to be the next generation that is going to
take care of the planet. Environmental youth organisations have produced so far a great
deal of positive effort towards ameliorating the situation of the environment as well as
sensitising people from all age groups towards recycling or ecology.
Nevertheless, there seems to be also concern associated with youth that engages in
organised activities, since a lot of parents or teachers fear that this might “overwhelm”
young people and make them under feel under pressure or somehow inhibit their achiev-
ing abilities. On the other hand, a major concern refers to “over-scheduling”, which is
designated as coming from adults’ general pressure in order to achieve good results in
schools and attain long-term educational and career goals (Mahoney et al, 2002:3). On
another level, especially referring to children and your people below the age of 18 years
old, there is often the assumption that they are incapable of making their own decisions
and judging according to their best interest and well-being. This argument is often used
to prevent children or youth to take part in important issues that concern them directly
and their participation rights are often denied. This aspect is particularly serious since it
inhibits the ability of youth to be taken seriously when expressing ideas and trying to be
part of important matters.
Turning to an important point, the right to participation is one of the main elements of
taking part in decision making and be an active citizen who exercises rights. With the rise
of the notion of youth rights, a bigger importance has been given to the participation of
youth in the society. Participation constitutes an important basis regarding the creation
of a democratic and tolerant society. In addition, it contributes to the youth well-being by
taking in consideration their opinions and needs expressed in a direct way. Nevertheless,
it can be stated that in most of the cases, the ideas and opinions of youth are rarely taken
seriously in consideration. A lot of young people are barely asked regarding their daily
routine, school work etc. and about what affects them. They are generally not involved
enough or at all in the process of decision making and this starts since the early ages,
