Working Group on Youth Civic Engagement and Media

Posted by on August 1, 2003

YOUTH SERVICE AMERICA TO CONVENE THE WORKING GROUP ON NATIONAL & COMMUNITY SERVICE FOCUSED ON YOUTH CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AND THE MEDIA

As part of its strategy to convene the field, Youth Service America will convene its Working Group on National and Community Service to focus on effective and promising practices for harnessing the power of the media to increase youth civic engagement. The gathering will take place on Wednesday August 6, 2003 in Washington, DC from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm. The Working Group provides a cohesive voice for the youth service and service-learning field and raise awareness among policymakers and the federal government around service issues. Each Working Group results in an issue paper that is widely distributed throughout the field and to policymakers. Despite decline in youth interest in the news media and politics, young Americans are volunteering to serve their communities in record numbers. Youth Service America believes the media can play an important role in mobilizing and inspiring young people and increasing youth civic engagement. The Working Group on the media and youth civic engagement will address these issues by hearing from panelists, including: Laura Sessions Stepp, Style Staff Writer from the Washington Post, Carrie Donovan, the Youth Director at CIRCLE, and Markette Smith from YouthNOISE. Following the panel discussion, meeting participants will engage in a discussion to respond to the issues raised in the panel and to elicit existing effective and promising practices. To register to participate in the Working Group, RSVP to Kate Eklund at Youth Service America, by phone at (202)-296-2992 ext. 27 or email at keklund@ysa.org.