Youth for Latin America

Changemakers: Felipe Valencia Dongo; Camila Laurentino; Lucía Valencia-Dongo; Romina Cabrera; Ruth Holtom; Sadiq Miah

Every good project begins with a good story: Peruvian brothers Felipe and Lucia felt they should share their energy with other youngsters to build integration and mutual help in social projects. In Paraguay, Romina wanted to be a young and firm voice claiming for changes. In Brazil, Camila was thinking a way of embracing the world with her fraternity ideas. And in the UK, Ruth and Sadiq looked beyond territorial distances and found countries that needed their hands and hearts: And then, we met at LACYS! And we found out what we had in common: the will to rescue young people from apathy in Latin America!

A pioneer campaign to inspire and mobilize Latin American youth regarding the importance of “the three I’s”: social Involvement, Latin American Integration and Identity. In the activities that we will organize, young people will be empowered to create their own culture of solidarity and collaboration by using four simple mathematical tools: Adding ideas, Multiplying projects, Decreasing apathy and Dividing work! The project will contribute to the exchange and strengthening of ideas and experiences amongst Latin American youth as well as encouraging young people to join different youth-led organizations and start their own activism.

1. Connect Organizations – We will connect with 10 organizations related to youth in each country (we have already contacted to some of them), in order to promote their activities and encourage young people to join them. – Create a Song – a Latin American anthem will be written to inspire young people to get involved and unite as one continent. It will be used in the video and will be taught face to face wherever young people are visited. (We already have a preliminary version of the lyrics and the song). – Create a video to promote our project.

2. Promotion – Promote our activities through face-to-face presentations and talks in high schools and universities, as well as local media and also using online tools (especially Facebook and Twitter) to spread our ideas and invite young people and social entrepreneurs to join the “Latin America Youth Involvement Day”.

3. Event – Latin America Youth Involvement Day, a simultaneous event across Latin America in order to unite young people throughout the region.