Youth Solidarity Network Global Meeting

The Youth Solidarity Network (RSJ – in spanish) is a youth participation program that aims to create working networks for the construction of global citizenship and to respond through mobilizing action and advocacy to the global challenges of the international agenda. It is promoted by Entreculturas – Fe y Alegría and has been operating for more than 20 years in Spain and Latin America and more recently groups from Africa are joining.

More than two hundred young people and educators from nine countries in Latin America, Africa and Europe gathered from April 21 to 24 in Guadarrama (Madrid) for the 8th Global Meeting of the Youth Solidarity Network.

The meeting also had a strong presence of the groups of the international youth participation program Red Generación 21+, of which the Red Solidaria de Jóvenes is a member and which brings together groups of young people from the countries where Fe y Alegría is present (Latin America and Africa).

This event, held every two years, offers a global citizenship experience to young people who are part of their local Solidarity Network. Through collective construction workshops, they are invited to reflect on the challenges of transforming their environments and invited to take action and participate in contributing to a more just, egalitarian and sustainable world.

Agents of Change Action Plan

During the workshops, the young people have jointly designed an “Agents of Change Action Plan” that will serve as a road map for the different groups to guide actions for social transformation in their environments, concrete proposals for action and commitments that they assume as a Network. A guide for the youth groups during the next 24 months.

In this Plan, which is oriented towards youth advocacy and participation, the challenges, needs and global issues that have arisen in the last two years in relation to gender equality, environmental protection, interculturalism and forced migrations, the right to education, culture of peace and inequality have been addressed with a global perspective, focusing on those that have been increased or violated by the pandemic, such as mental health and socio-emotional education.

Entreculturas’ Youth Solidarity Network (RSJ)

The Youth Solidarity Network (RSJ) is a youth participation program aimed at adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age -who participate on a voluntary basis-, based on social work with peer groups, in which through training, reflection and the implementation of transformative actions, the development of values and attitudes of solidarity are encouraged, they experience that social change is possible, improve their cognitive, emotional, moral and social development and acquire basic skills for the exercise of global citizenship.

In its 21 years of existence (since 2001), the Solidarity Network has accompanied more than 9,600 young people, together with nearly 300 educators from 9 Autonomous Communities. In addition, it has linked up with other groups of young people and teachers from different Latin American and African countries through the Generation 21+ Network, which articulates, connects and offers international representation to these youth groups working for social transformation from their contexts. This April, the Network’s eighth Global Meeting brought them together again in Madrid to continue building an empowered global citizenry capable of leading the transition to a more just and equal world.

More information at redec.org