Youth in Governance
The Youth in Governance Initiative (YIG) is a collaborative partnership that assists groups and organizations who want to increase youth voice in decision making.
YIG offers support to organizations and youth in order to involve more teens in boards and commissions across Alaska.
In our own program, AYEA supports the principles of YIG though our model of giving youth opportunities to drive all the work that we do. AYEA has a youth and adult Statewide Advisory Group that serves as a decision-making body for our program. In addition, youth leaders create and direct our annual campaigns, and youth serve in leadership roles at our training events. We are always looking for opportunities for youth input and direction in our program.
AYEA also assists other organizations, especially those in the conservation community, in identifying opportunities to involve youth in leadership and decision-making roles. AYEA maintains a listing of current board opportunities for organizations to promote and advertise youth board seats. Members of AYEA have served on boards of Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Anchorage Waterways Council, and Alaska Marine Conservation Council.
YIG is an asset to the conservation community
- Involving youth in the conservation movement emphasizes the importance of conservation as a way of protecting the inheritance of future generations
- Young people bring fresh perspective to the conservation community, which often has a “usual suspects”, insular feeling or reputation
- Young people are currently an untapped resource for conservation efforts such as clean-ups, canvassing, education, and messaging
- Having a youth board position helps to insure organizational longevity and continuity
- YIG can offer training to boards so that organizations don’t have a youth just to have a token youth. YIG can train boards and young people in effective ways of working together that make the most out of each party’s skills
- Young people enliven (and often shorten!) board meetings
- Young people are often more aware of what makes for effective advertising and messaging in the 21st century
- Young people are members of our communities. They are impacted by conservation crises as much as or more than are adults. Their voices deserve to be heard in our conservation community
Check out the YIG Brochure
Alaskan Youth
- Check out AYEA’s listing of current board openings for young people
Organizations
- Check out YIG’s online resources at the AASB Initiative for Community Engagement website.
- Contact us if you’re interested in training or assistance for adding a youth position to your board.
