The GCYF Principles
The GCYF principles
If you go by the indicators, most young people in our world cannot (indeed, they should not imagine that they can) count on a decent future.
GCYF
· Believes that young people who work to change their own lives are the world’s biggest heroes. We applaud all young people who are applying their resourcefulness, skills, and drive to change their lives. If they cannot do something for themselves, how can they lead, or transform the lives and living conditions for their families, peers, and communities?
· Celebrates all agents who help these courageous journeys of self-discovery, risk-taking, and dignity – against the odds. We admire every contribution to the youth of this world. We swear by service –not just to help the most vulnerable survive one more day—but service designed with intention so that youth have access to options, and can strive for, prepare for, and achieve goals that are meaningful to them.
· Affirms that our gold standard is the USE TEST
InsInstead of giving what we assume will work–
Did we listen intently to what young people have to say?
Did our work actively incorporate what they said they need?
What USE did young people make of what we offered?
· Asks: if we offered employability skills, for instance, then how did recipients actually use those skills? Were they able to secure employment? Instead of measuring the number of training sessions and recording numbers of those who attended them, we should be asking: What USE did participants make of those workshops and trainings? How did they apply what they learnt? If they could not apply or benefit from such training, then offering more such trainings is not likely to help.
It is of little use to distribute free anti-malaria bed nets that recipients will then use to fishor protect their livestock, but not themselves or their children.
It is demoralizing when financial contributions toward a genocide survivor’s university tuition are spent by her family to pay off their accumulated debts (as some of my grad school friend-contributors and I learnt to our chagrin back in the day).
It is even more futile to argue that “they” or “others” do not understand.
THE USE TEST
Minimum threshold: are our young people able to apply their drive and use what is offered to secure a positive outcome for themselves?
Moderate threshold: are they able to sustain this outcome?
More ambitiously: are there other positive spillovers, such that benefits from this arena were used to advance in another area of their lives? Is the “giving” in the here and now able to move the needle on multiple dimensions of deprivation, impacting the overall quality of life?
· Commits to listening closely to what peoples’ priorities are, to understand their reasons for the choices made, and the things they do.
· Believes that replication and scaling are important objectives for development solutions, but just as important and worthy of investment is any single project in any single community that passes the “use test” even in its minimal and moderate formulations.
· Belongs to that community of listeners, practitioners, researchers, mentors, peers, social impact investors, officials and allies with goodwill, thoughtfulness and readiness for self-reflection--- who stand with the youth of this world, and refuse a situation in which young people give up on themselves or we give up on them.
