Global Youth Work: Taking it Personally

£14.95

Edited by Momodou Sallah and Sophie Cooper (April 2008)

Product Description

Engagement with Global Youth Work can no longer be about just ‘doing the right thing and easing one’s conscience’.

A new resource pack from The National Youth Agency gives youth workers a host of reasons to involve themselves in global youth work and a range of practical ways in which they can do so.

Global Youth Work: Taking it Personally is geared towards practitioners who work face-to-face with young people. Joint editor Momodou Sallah, from De Montfort University, said: “it will help make the personal, local, national and global connections between ‘things out there’ and ‘things in here’.”

The ten sections in the pack consider a range of issues including human values; body image; gangs and crime; the clothing industry; refugees; the war on terror; religious identity; music; and sustainable development. Each chapter discusses the topic and offers a range of related activities that aim to make global youth work more accessible to youth workers both as a philosophy and a delivery tool.

Writing in the introduction Momodou Sallah and joint editor Sophie Cooper, Global Youth Work Officer with Cyfanfyd, which works to develop global citizenship in Wales, said: “Globalisation has become of increasing significance as evidenced by the fact that Gordon Brown identified it as one of six priorities to build a ‘stronger, fairer Britain’. It refers to the world coming together due to closer economic, cultural, environmental, political and technological interactions resulting in global interdependence.

“The urgency to engage in global youth work – the process of working with young people to make the personal, local, national and global connections and, if need be take action – is exacerbated by the recognition that it goes beyond the moral and green imperatives. It is increasingly linked to the economic imperative and the security and survival imperative.

“This means that engagement with Global Youth Work can no longer be about just ‘doing the right thing and easing one’s conscience’. Of equal importance is the growing necessity to recognise the economic and security imperatives for the survival of all humankind.”

Practitioners, managers, policy makers and educators will find a range of valuable resources in Global Youth Work: Taking it Personally to develop their own understanding and practice, and that of the young people with whom they work.