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UNESCO YOUTH COORDINATION UNIT
UNESCO: Acting with and for youth
According to the United Nations, "Youth" is constituted by people aged between 15 and 24 years old. The UNESCO Youth Coordination Unit works WITH and FOR young people in this age group.
UNESCO’s involvement in the field of youth stems from the beginning of the organization in 1947. After the second World War, UNESCO helped organize international volunteer youth work camps to aid in the reconstruction of Europe. Almost fifty years later in November 1996, Member States at the 29th Session of the UNESCO General Conference reaffirmed and stressed their unanimous commitment to youth as a priority for the whole Organization. The Youth Coordination Unit (UCJ) is, since 1998, in charge of giving an impulsion and a coherence to UNESCO's Action with and for Youth and benefits from direct communications with youth through a wide network of associations and Youth NGOs, its active participation in a lot of youth events, an Internal Priority Youth Committee, an external advisory body called the Youth Council.
UNESCO’s commitment to youth is guided by the following principles:
Listening closely and actively to what young people have to say, establishing a dialogue with young women and men and responding with concrete results;
Considering youth as partners in all programme action to benefit and enable young people to make specific contributions to program design, execution and evaluation;
Seeking to share with young people a culture of peace, solidarity and non-violence; and
stimulating the Member States to promote youth policies.
The UNESCO Youth Coordination Unit (UCJ) stimulates, encourages, mobilizes and assists all services and offices within UNESCO to ensure youth be a PRIORITY in all of its programmes.
For more information see www.unesco.org/youth
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