Grow your own Unya!
United Nations Youth Associations (UNYAs) are youth-led NGOs consisting entirely of youth volunteers. UNYAs are a great way to teach about the United Nations, and get other youth involved in understanding and sharing the ideals enshrined in the UN Charter and other universal principles. UNYAs also provide fertile ground for youth empowerment, education, networking, and generating public opinion to support the work of the United Nations to build a better world for all.
Some of the core aims of UNYAs are to:
- Educate young people and the community about the work of the United Nations;
- Empower young people to get involved in international affairs and civil society;
- Represent the views of young people at a local, national and international level; and,
- Act as forum for young people to network and socialize.
If your country doesn't have an UNYA, you still could get involved with your local United Nations Association (UNA), and then create the youth component or UNYA. If your country is one of the few that doesn't have a United Nations Association, then you could always start one up - the World Federation of United Nations Associations - Youth) and its members are committed to developing new UNYAs.
UNYAs conduct a variety of activities, some of which are:
- Model United Nations, a simulation of a UN meeting for High School students (not unlike a competitive debate);
- Education programmes run for primary and secondary school students, informing them about the work of the United Nations;
- Speakers events and panel discussions;
- UN Youth Delegate programmes.
Find out more: A guide to carrying out simple and effective UNYA-projects
One way to grow your own UNYA:
- Get together with other interested people and have a meeting. Discuss how to find other interested members and what types of things the association could do. Draft a constitution (help is available if you're feeling overwhelmed!).
- Advertise for interested people to join - you might be able to convince a newspaper to run a free announcement, you could contact youth groups, young civic groups, schools, universities, and of course your local UNA.
- Convene a meeting of interested people to accept constitute the association and elect a committee. Brainstorm possible activities, programmes and projects that the organisation could be involved with.
- Have regular meetings, make them interesting, and keep them as inclusive as possible - more people attending meetings means more ideas, more members, more success (and more fun!).
- Contact your local UNA and the World Federation of United Nations Associations - Youth and regularly keep them up to date on your activities - they might also be able to give you advice or help you out.
Of course you don't have to start one this way - you might just want to get a few friends together and meet once a month to talk about the UN and international issues - that's fine too!
For more information, please contact the international umbrella organization of all UNYA and UNA Youth Sections/Programmes: World Federation of United Nations Associations - Youth (WFUNA-Youth).