The Experience of the Youth Network of Medellin Colombia

Empowerment in an adult-centric and patriarchal society

Since the decade of the 1990's, there has been growing concern in Colombia about the youth (ages 12 through 26) of society, particularly in Medellin. This concern developed amidst the country's profound social and political crisis, because young people have been the principal protagonists--as agressors and victims--in a dynamic of war, the narcotraffic war. In response, the state government and nongovernmental civic organizations started to think about developing projects that would attend to and protect youth. They approached their work with an understanding of these social problems as an illness--an epidemiological vision of the youth situation. As a result, their programs are oriented more toward social control than toward empowering a process through which this sector of the population can assumes its role inside or outside of the society.

The importance of this moment is that it created an opportunity for many organizations and individuals, ranging from the state to the nongovernmental organizations, to propose a different way of thinking about and developing projects that give power to youth as actors in society rather than treating them as objects of study or tools for maintaining the status quo. Thus, in addition to the many projects that were shaped by a protectionist and controlling vision, this moment also created an opening to establish projects for empowerment and youth autonomy. These projects facilitated direct access to information and mechanisms for political participation that were little known in Colombian society (based on the Constitutional reforms of 1991). They broke with the past, creating the expectation of social transformation, and conflicts and aggression toward the new tendencies.

On the one side there existed youth who were violent and involved in conflict; but, on the other side, there existed organized efforts among youth to influence social and political processes--the student movement, outreach by the Catholic Church and the youth sections of the political parties, both traditional (conservative and liberal) and organizing campaigns on the Left. These youth processes had a strong political content and control by adults. Frequently, young people interested in politics were enrolled by these projects, or they were led to them to abandon politics completely because of too much dogmatism and verticality.

In this general context for youth, the proposal for a Youth Network erupted with a methodology that sought--and seeks--to propose a reading from these same youth, in which adults play a role of accompaniment and motivation. The interest of organizing the youth groups depends on the initiative and proposals of the youth themselves and it has become an option that expands the range of possibilities for youth work in the city.

With a high level of participation, self-direction, unity, and youth autonomy, in other words, empowerment, the youth network has initiated a process that seeks to unlearn the old social practices that were vertical and authoritarian. It has begun to create different forms of relating among young people and with other generations. Youth are developing as social and political actors with the capacity for decision-making and the ability to influence public policy. It has not been easy either to unlearn the old practices or to develop this political power. The youth have had to overcome many stigmas, even among themselves, to achieve a level of participation that empowers the public at large.

What is the Network?

It is an organization made up of and oriented toward groups of youth, the majority of whom come from lower social classes. During the last 10 years, it has supported the consolidation of self-direction for youth and youth autonomy while interacting with other social sectors, both public and private.

The network is based on a participatory model that promotes attitudes and practices of transformation of the social, political, and cultural reality in which the majority of young people in the city live.

What does it seek?

That young people who join the Network develop their own individuality and become capable of supporting the construction of their own future while overcoming of their daily problems.

To be a permanent space for youth self-development that uses discussion and group action to recover cultural themes, rights, and desires of the neighborhood group.

For the next three years, we have constructed, redeveloped, and deepened our process with an understanding of globalization in order to act in our local context of war.

Our Mission:

From the perspective of active nonviolence and civil disobedience, the Youth Network seeks to contribute to the transformation of social, political, and cultural reality by strengthening, empowering, and articulating an identity of youth as a social process. From that process, we seek to construct a just, inclusive, equalitarian, and humane society.

Our Vision:

The Youth Network promotes a process for youth that engages the reality in which they live and interact, generating proposals to transform the traditional culture that is the base of our current society--alternatives that constitute and strengthen civil society and construct their own form of society. The Youth Network supports this vision with values like cooperation, autonomy, equity, solidarity, commitment, pluralism, attitudes of transformation and change, and horizontalism with respect to human rights, resistance, self-determination, and nonviolence.

Why Do We Need a Youth Network?

In the midst of a society like Colombia's that lurches toward a general social and political crisis, the presence of alternatives for work and strengthening of civil society--especially among youth--supports the creation of a different way of thinking. It promotes an alternative for resolving conflicts without resorting to the elimination of "the other" who disagrees--thinking that is central toward escaping the crisis situation.

The Youth Network also allows the construction of a social fabric, not only among youth but also among other organizations and processes. This social fabric, the integration and unity are the basis for thinking about a new citizenship that is more integrated, brotherly, and enjoys a greater capacity for action in this environment.

Strategic Objectives

A. Social base: during the next three years, the Youth Network seeks to construct and implement a model of interaction with its social base by means of a plan for wholistic development that articulates the process for the actors and permits them to sustain their own action, influence public policy, and strengthen the organization.

B. Political orientation: to speak as a political protagonist in the city's diverse settings to strengthen the discourse and political practice by means of debate, interchange, and ongoing interaction and cooperation with alternative political practices at the local, national, and international levels.

C. Management: to construct a system of efficient and effective management that supports the financial sustainability and functioning of the organization so that the planning and social projection of the Network and its political action can confront the demands of the moment in the different settings of the city.

D. Internal Support: to construct and implement a plan of promotion and development for strengthening the Youth Network and the individuals that belong to it by means of analysis, reestablishing interpersonal relations and generating support for cultural transformation from the organization's own processes.

With these elements that involve external as well as internal factors we think that the wholistic development of a youth process is possible. Further, we believe that it will also influence its members as individuals.

For the preceding, we seek: To consolidate the role of youth as protagonists, strengthening the base and adopting active nonviolence and civil disobedience as a philosophy and orienting principle.

To be a space for the development and increasing awareness of our members so that we win more and better space each day for the development of our proposals and dreams. This development will involve technical skills as well as political reflection, with young people internalizing the importance of knowing what has happened and being able to act favorably on it.

To continue the articulation and interchange with regional and international humanitarian processes that oppose today's dominant system and its violence, exclusion, and selfishness in order to permit the strengthening of alternative actions and alternative discourses of these processes.

We hope these elements serve for reflection of our work and that we can initiate a discussion with others about the construction of a better world with greater dignity for all because in the Youth Network, we have dreams and we construct realities.