On April 15, 2004 I traveled to São Paulo, Brazil to address the International Seminar on the Public Policies of Youth, sponsored by Projeto Juventude, a Brazilian youth participation program, the Citizenship Institute, a Brazilian national nonprofit organization, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). I was one of several international speakers present, with others coming from South Africa, Portugal, Cuba, and Spain, among other places. I was the only North American present. The following is my address to the gathering.

I want to begin my address by thanking my hosts today, including the Youth Project and the Citizenship Institute. I also want to say that I am honored to be sitting on a panel with such esteemed presenters, whom I have learned a great deal from at this conference. Finally, a big thanks to my friend Jonah Wittkamper, who facilitated me coming here today. Thank you all very much.

Unlike many of the speakers at this conference, I am not an administrator or a policy-maker. I am not an academic researcher or a scholar. Instead, I am a young man who grew up poor and with limited resources; for the past fifteen years of my life I have had the honor of sharing what skills I possess with other young people as a community educator. I simply come to you today to share my perspective, including some observations and examples regarding the legality and legitimacy of youth participation. I seek solidarity with many of you who are my Brazilian counterparts.

I want to reiterate previous speakers’ points about interdependence. Interdependence is the act of being mutually dependent, having to rely on others to survive. Isolation is the act of setting apart or cutting off from others. Isolation destroys community, while community building requires us to have help from other people. It means depending on others. I believe that the concept of interdependence should resonate in the work of legislating youth participation in any nation, particularly one as global in its perspectives and actions as Brazil. We must educate communities and young people themselves that young people are, and should be, reliant upon their communities, and vice versa. This is the heart of interdependence. Sadly, that same perspective is lacking in the United States, where I currently live and work. In my speech I will detail some of the advances the United States has made in providing legality and legitimacy to youth participation. I will also provide a candid, and perhaps blunt, analysis of the failures of American policy. To do this, I will answer the three questions provided in our agendas, which are: Do youth policies need to be anchored in legislation; What specific rights of youth must be translated into law, and; What is the role of the legislature in this theme?

Regarding the question of whether youth policies need to be anchored in legislation, with respect to previous speakers’ opinions, I would say that while legislation is important to youth participation, it is vital for community youth workers and educators not to rely on lawmakers in order to take action. In my experience and research, I have come to believe that public policy is contingent upon the whims of politicians, and is subject to change as rapidly as the weather.

I will share two examples to illustrate my point. The first is seeded in the United States during the 1930s and 40s. While the country was grappling with the social, political, and economic effects of the Great Depression that made more than fifty percent of American workers jobless, the Congress got busy in creating the National Youth Administration, or NYA. The goal of the NYA was to provide jobs and training to young workers who were homeless and out-of-school. The NYA was immediately popular with politicians because of its rapid response to the immediate needs of the public. However, after just ten short years the program was unfunded by the federal government, and soon after completely dismantled. The reasoning was simple: when industry geared up for American participation in World War II, there was no need for youth to continue earning wages in menial labor jobs. Those who were able were promptly shipped off to public schools and the military; those who were not “able” were let onto the streets, where there is still today a large population of young people without the necessary education or resources needed to fully participate in society.

The second example that illustrates my point about politicians and their wavering commitment to youth policies comes from modern times, the last fifteen years. Under Bill Clinton, the most recent democratically-elected president of the United States, the Congress created a national community service program called AmeriCorps. The goal of this program was to engage young people in service to their communities in the areas of education, the environment, unmet human needs, and public safety. Many people thought of the program as a sort of Peace Corps for the United States; I certainly did when I joined. It gave me a feeling of pride and purpose to serve in AmeriCorps, and I learned a great deal while earning money for college. It seemed like a win-win situation. However, today I am almost embarrassed to mention that I was an AmeriCorps Member. You see, in 2001 George Bush effectively hijacked the good nature of AmeriCorps when he renamed the program “Freedom Corps,” and changed the purpose of the agency from promoting goodwill and community-building to being a tool for political propagandizing through community service. This wholesale disenfranchisement of young people’s honest desire to participate in meaningful service to their communities is a damning indictment of politicians’ inability to be truly responsive to the best interest of their constituencies, particularly young people themselves.

While these examples dramatically illustrate that politicians can destroy as well as they build, I hope it also proves that communities should not rely on politicians to drive change. Projects and activities that seek to develop the skills and abilities of young people do not have to be anchored in policy in order to actually be successful. For this reason I believe that it is important to say that communities and young people themselves should not wait for politicians to take action; we should take action now and hope the politicians catch up.

To reiterate this conclusion, I want to provide you with a short course in the effects of youth participation on American legislation throughout history. In 1773, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were young men, both under the age of 25. After fighting gallantly and speaking loudly against the continued British occupation of the American colonies, each of these men went on to become central leaders in the new nation that was formed, as citizen leaders and Presidents. Each of these men were under 25. Much later on, in 1903, more than 10,000 child workers marched on Washington, DC in a show of solidarity against child labor. Soon after that the Congress and the President responded with sweeping legislation against the economic exploitation of children in workplaces. Martin Luther King, Junior, was only 26 when he became a central leader in the African American Civil Rights Movement. Through his courageous advocacy, federal legislation was created that granted Blacks equal votes, equal access throughout society, and the equal rights of citizenship in the United States. Again, Dr. King was only 26. In 1971, a group of young people from across the United States worked together to lobby for the lowering of the federal voting age limit, from 21 to 18. These young people did not wait for legislators to take action, and hope that legislation would cause policy or social changes. Instead, they took action, and eventually, the politicians caught up to their intentions.

That said, I think that it is important to give public policy-making its due: legislation has an important role in giving youth policies legitimacy and ensuring long-term sustainability. In the United States this has taken form in limited federal legislation affecting juvenile justice programs, runaway and homeless youth, foster youth, youth employment, and education. Each of these areas has specific federal policies which have been promoted through legislation, and which are vital to the health, education, and long-term contributions of young people throughout American society.

A hope that I would like to express for the Brazilian people is that, as dedicated youth advocates and allies, young people themselves and adults in local communities keep pressure on the federal government to ensure accountability and longevity in the area of youth participation. In the United States many people have either forgotten or casually relegated their democratic responsibility to hold politicians to a high level of expectations and outcomes. Hopefully your nation can do a better job of this vital task.

The second question that I hope to answer is, “What specific rights of youth must be translated into law?” I believe that any duties that are the responsibilities of all citizens must be extended to youth. In the United States, this includes all manners of civic engagement, including paying taxes, volunteering in one’s community, and fulfilling other social duties. Unfortunately, these responsibilities do not include the most important duty of any citizen in any country, which is the responsibility of participating in the popular discourse of democratic society: voting. The right of voting must be extended to all young people, of any age, throughout society, from the local level to the national and international levels. We are witnessing the acknowledgement of this essential democratic right around the world, in countries such as Britain and Germany, where there is serious consideration giving youth the right to vote. Several areas in the United States are also taking action, including the states of California and Texas, and local municipalities around the States.

In considering what rights of youth must be translated into law, we must consider the difference between societal dedication, cultural expectations, and legal obligation. In the United States, the civil rights of African Americans were supposedly guaranteed through societal dedication, via President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. However, it took more than 100 years for the country to ensure equal and integrated opportunities for all African Americans to vote, attend public schools, and to simply live in peace. Those steps were taken by ensuring the legal obligation of society to integrate African Americans. I think we can draw a simple correlation between the experiences of African Americans in the United States and that of young people today, if just to illustrate the necessity of translating all rights of youth into law.

An important footnote: many Americans of European descent still do not acknowledge the civil rights of African Americans to this day. Because of this, many African Americans still live without full access to the political, educational, economic, and justice systems that Americans of European descent created. Without their rights fully ensured, the history of African Americans in the United States also shows the fallacy of relying on legislative measures and the political motivations behind them.

The last question that I want to address is “What is the role of the legislature in this theme?” In a successful democracy, politicians must constantly seek to be authentically responsive to the needs and desires of their constituencies, and that includes young people today. As young people continue to increase their engagement in our countries and communities, politicians are increasingly pressured to recognize youth as more than just pleasant distractions or menial players; instead, young people must be identified as instrumental contributors in the political process. And I am not just talking about placating young people through simplistic youth forums or youth councils. I am talking about the complete integration of young people into the legislative, legal, and political processes which affect them and the communities they belong to. I want to illustrate these points with two thoughts.

As I just stated, my first point is that legislation should be used to validate the opinions, ideas, experiences, and knowledge of young people. In New York City, one youth-led community organization has partnered with the local public school district to create a school that has been planned by the students themselves. This school will focus on social justice and youth empowerment, and will provide an opportunity for youth who have not been successful in traditional schools to excel. Another example, which I mentioned earlier, also rightly fits here, too. I mentioned that the most progressive communities in the United States considering the possibility of enfranchising young people with the right to vote. It is efforts such as these, which represent the authentic voices of young people, that must be uplifted, informed, sustained and celebrated by our politicians and our communities. Only in this way can legislators be accountable by fulfilling their obligations to society, including youth themselves.

My second point is that politicians must not use legislation as a tool to placate young people or their communities’ sincere desires to foster their engagement. The story I want to share here is from the 1990s, when I served in the AmeriCorps National Service program. In 1996, Bill Clinton hosted the President's Summit for America's Future. It brought together thousands of leaders of voluntary service organizations from all sectors and backgrounds, including young people from all parts of the United States. While it was billed as a chance for young people to “meaningfully contribute” to their communities, this event did little to actually mobilize local communities’ interest in engaging young people. However, due to this event, when people ask what the United States has done to mobilize youth participation, it can be said that a significant attempt was made. The United States Congress could have taken steps to ensure the lasting impacts of this event, and subsequent Presidents might be obligated to uphold the values and goals of youth participation. Instead, the opportunity was wasted. [*]

To close I want to return to the topic of interdependence. I want to quote a hero and mentor of mine, the American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior. Dr. King once wrote, “We are everlasting debtors to known and unknown men and women. When we arise in the morning, we go into a bathroom where we reach for a sponge that is provided to us by a Pacific Islander. We reach for soap that is created for us by a European. Then, at the table we drink coffee which is provided for us by a South American, or tea by Chinese, or cocoa by a West African. Before we leave for our jobs, we are already beholden to more than half the world.”

The purpose of youth participation in society must be more than simply to create better politicians, better legislation, or even better learners and workers. The purpose of youth participation must be to create a better society: one that challenges governments to become more democratic; one that challenges democracy to become more authentic; and one that challenges all people to become significantly engaged. Only in this way will youth participation be legitimate, and only in this way will legislation matter.

Thank you for your time today.