Many members are looking for ways to engage young people in international cooperation. That is not so easy. In his inaugural speech a while ago, Dirk-Jan Koch put his finger on a sore spot, namely that many of our organisations have neglected to inspire young people’s enthusiasm for development cooperation and have operated too much from within an (elitist) bubble. The data he presented showed that support for development cooperation has fallen sharply. There are all sorts of reasons for this. What he highlighted in particular was the limited presence of charities on social media, especially on TikTok. He jokingly pointed out that a hairdresser in The Hague has more followers than a charity. Since that inaugural lecture, we’ve been working hard to work out how this might be possible. And we haven’t quite got there yet, although a picture is beginning to emerge of what youth participation might look like in the future.
Interaction with students
Last week, I gave a guest lecture to first-year students at Radboud University. I always really enjoy doing that. First of all, it’s rewarding to share knowledge, but more importantly, it provides a wealth of insight into how young people view development cooperation and are involved in it. It allows me to gauge, in an informal way, where we stand as a sector.
My overall impression after this lecture is that this group of young people is very interested in international solidarity. So it shouldn’t be too difficult to get them involved. Most are also interested in an international career. At the same time, their view of development cooperation is fairly traditional: helping poor children, organising charity runs to combat polluted water, and tackling hunger in the wake of disasters. Development organisations are not necessarily seen as innovative or as relevant players in social development. Furthermore, many organisations are unknown to young people.
Interestingly, many of these students had in fact attended the ‘Rode Lijn’ event(s). Taking part gave them a sense of togetherness, of achieving something together, and of international solidarity. They were very positive about this. The fact that this event was partly organised by development organisations was less well known. The link with international cooperation was therefore not made.
Contributing to solutions is important
For young people, it is important to be able to actively contribute to solutions on issues that affect them. This is in line with what the organising organisations had already concluded. Young people do not mobilise around issues that do not appeal to them. For organisations in our network, this means that young people do not automatically commit to their organisation. What does work, however, is offering them the opportunity to contribute to solving urgent, larger-scale issues. This is not about money – that comes later – but about investing time and energy.
Armed with these findings, we are embarking on this journey with young people. Discussions with young people, our own member organisation CHOICE and other youth organisations should clarify how this can be put into practice in a more concrete way. Perhaps not for the benefit of individual organisations, but certainly to strengthen international solidarity as a whole. And that is very important in these turbulent times of international unrest.