Youth Empowerment: Presentation with Notes

Hello. My name is Amy Sample Ward and I’m the Global Community Builder for NetSquared, a nonprofit organization focused on the intersection of technology and social change, specifically innovation in technology that benefit social impact work. I’ve also been a blogger, facilitator, and consultant for the past few years. 1

Today I’m going to cover a few case studies and discuss two very important elements to any campaign or project using social media to engage and empower youth. 2

The ﬁrst case study looks at SexInfoSF, empowering youth to take control of their lives by anonymously receiving answers and information about their sexual health questions. 3

SexInfo is an sms-based system targeted at youth in San Francisco aged 12-17 5

In 2005, rates of gonorrhea among African-American youth, ages 18 to 25, had gone up over 100 percent, with African-American women being infected by the disease at 12 times the rate of American women of Caucasian descent. With 85 percent of the city’s youth owning a mobile phone, a text-based approach simply made sense. 6

Deborah Levine, executive director of internet Sexuality Information Services (ISIS-Inc.), a nonproﬁt she founded that develops “high-tech solutions for sexual health education, was approached by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) to develop a website to address rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases among at-risk youth. As the project developed, additional partners became involved including community organizations, schools and universities, churches, and more. 7

HipCricket, Inc., a mobile marketing firm in Australia, was hired to develop the mobile service, then they had to acquire the short code. Once that was all in place, it was a matter of letting youth know about the service and use it. During the first 25 weeks of the project (April-October 2006), 4,500 individuals accessed the service, with 2,500 taking the steps to retrieve content and referrals. The top three messages accessed were: “What 2 do if ur condom broke,: “2 find out about STDs” and “if u think ur pregnant.” 8

Youthnet.org in the UK operates Brook, an online sexual health resource for teens that added a text messaging sex information service. Similar to SexInfo, users can text a keyword to a short code to receive a menu of options. Very usefully, users can also text in a keyword and their postal code to 81222 to receive detailed information about health services in their geographic area 9

The next examples if of YouthForce, empowering youth to include their voices in the global conversation about HIV/AIDS. 10

YouthForce is a coalition of youth‐led and/or youth‐serving HIV/AIDS organizations who are working to empower young delegates and promote youth participation around HIV/AIDS before, during and after the International AIDS Conference – which takes place every two years in different locations around the world. 12

The impetus for YouthForce came about at the International Conference in 2000 where only 50 youth participated. In 2002, YouthForce ran a visibility campaign that asked “where are the youth?” that made such an impact on the international event that former US President Bill Clinton included it in his remarks at the closing ceremonies, point to it as an example of the type of advocacy effort that can bring real change to the way global decision-making about HIV/AIDS priorities are made. 13

Advocates for Youth and Family Health International joined forces with over 40 other organizations to form the ﬁrst YouthForce, focused on increasing youth participation for AIDS 2002 in Barcelona; and it continues to grow as new partners come on board for each conference. 14

After the visibility campaign, following conferences saw the development of youth programing and a youth pre-conference event. All the work is tied together though the online YouthForce site and calls to action powered by TakingItGlobal. Through the partnership with TakingItGlobal, YouthForce is now a partnerships of hundreds of organizations with thousands of youth participating online and off, moving from visibility of youth to the inclusion of youth voices and others in the policy discourse around HIV/AIDS work internationally. 15

Last year, the Chain Reaction event brought together social leaders, community activists, policy makers, business leaders, and young people from around the globe to share learning and to generate new ideas for social change, locally, nationally and globally. Attendees included over 1,000 people from 16 countries, at least 200 of which were aged under 21; Chain Reaction used an online community portal (called Crowdvine) to create a space for delegates to connect before, during and after the conference. 16

The last example for today is YouthNet’s TheSite.org – empowering youth to take control of their lives and decisions by providing easy, private access to information and answers to their questions. 17

TheSite.org provides online support and guidance to young people aged 16-24 in the UK. 19

YouthNet believes that young people have the capacity to make their own decisions and life choices, provided they have access to high quality, impartial information and advice, so TheSite includes everything from health to travel, drugs to school. 20

YouthNet also runs do-it.org.uk which connects users to volunteering opportunities. 21

TheSite.org launched just over ten years ago, with the community features included in 2000 and askthesite (the expert Q & A) launched in 2003. YouthNet has seen major support from government, foundations, and the voluntary sector, all helping to fund and grow the services provided on TheSite and elsewhere. 22

By 2006, YouthNet’s do-it.org.uk offered over 800,000 volunteering opportunities, and had over 150,000 registered volunteers. Here are just three examples of the many similar projects focused on connecting young people with something positive to do – do something.org, taking it global, youth noise, etc. 23

Now to highlight some of the lessons you should keep in mind as your turn to small groups this afternoon to think strategically about opportunities to use these technologies and others to empower our local youth. 24

Who is the audience? There are many different reports available, including Danah Boyd’s extensive research, that indicates our offline or “real world” social dynamics are being replicated online – white flight, ghettos, and so forth are visible problems and patterns offline, and are so online as well. Be sure to know who it is you really want to connect with, as their demographics can do a great deal to inform the kind of technologies appropriate. 25

Where does that audience go? If it’s a group that falls in the 17 million in the UK without internet, maybe a mobile approach is best. If they have access to the internet, where are they going online? You can ﬁnd statistics that details the demographics of different social media tools, but you can also ask your community. Go straight to the source for the information about where they go online and where they would want to connect or learn more. Asking the audience invites them to immediately take a stake in the development and eventual product or outcome which can be key to adoption. 26

Now that you know where they go online, identify what they want to do? If the audience is often visiting social networks, is it because they want to connect with their friends or they want to share content? If they are visiting a video site like YouTube, is it because they want to watch videos, upload their own, or start conversations in the often long comment threads? These different options can greatly impact a campaign or project online – after you identify where they go, it’s important to know why they go there. 27

How does your audience talk online? You don’t want to show up or create a space and then inherently exclude or turn visitors off to your content or services simply by the way you explain things or talk. Invite members of your target audience to contribute content and help shape the space so it is an appropriate match to the end users. Again, inviting participation will increase the audience’s likelihood of participation. 28

How does the audience want to be involved? If your users want to get involved in a local volunteering project the content and calls to action will be dramatically different than if they want anonymous advice about their sexual health. Identify the core ways the audience will want to take action and craft the opportunities and content around these options. 29

The questions about goals of the project, as we saw in the three case studies, are just as important as the questions about the audience. 30

Do the goals of the project match the vision of the work? If you want to eliminate youth crime, the goal the campaigns or projects center on shouldn’t be anything less than supporting youth communities to be free of crime. 31

Do your goals empower the audience? This is similar to inviting participation from the outset – are your goals ones that empower the youth community to be involved, make a difference, change their lives? 32

The tools are not the center of success – the goals, people, and engagement opportunities are. Do the tools you choose to use help achieve the goals? If not, don’t use them, even if they are shiny, or cool, or new. 33

Lastly, are your goals measureable? Identifying from the beginning of the goals will be measured will help continuously measure the work, evaluate it, and iterate to further develop the most appropriate messages and options for the community you are targeting and the social change you’re after. 34

Thanks so much for your time! There are so many more case studies I could have included here and will try to do so when I put these slides up on my blog. Here are the links to the speciﬁc cases mentioned here if you want to look them up online. Thanks again! 35

Youth Empowerment: Presentation with Notes

by Amy Sample Ward on Jul 20, 2009

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Youth Empowerment: Presentation with Notes — Document Transcript