About the GYE

The Global Youth Experience (GYE) is a forum for young, globally-minded citizens (ages 18-25) from 10 to 15 countries worldwide to foreground youth voices and empower youth as active participants in our increasingly complex, global world. This experience will begin with a 6-session virtual component from October to December 2024 for 100 to 120 youth, followed by a February 2025 in-person Summit at Lakehead University, Orillia, for approximately 40 youth (20 local and 20 international youth). International youth will be selected through partner organisations of the Commonwealth Youth Work Micro-credentials project from the Pacific, Southern Africa, and the Caribbean.  Local youth will be selected from partner programs including the Youth Policy-Makers Hub (YPH) of the Organisation for International Cooperation (OCIC), the Rama Youth Council, and Lakehead International.

The benefits of GYE for youth include:

  • Chance to interact with youth from other cultural contexts in real time
  • Entitled to receive a certificate of participation at the completion of all five sessions
  • Become eligible  to be considered for the in the in-person Global Citizenship Summit in Orillia, Canada

 

The objectives the project include:

  1. Learning about global citizenship from the vantage points of youth from many different countries.
  2. Deliberating on contemporary global issues that are important to youth through first-hand dialogue with international youth.
  3. Convening space for connecting, sharing and co-creating an agenda to educate their peers about gripping global issues around the world.
  4. Enabling refinement of a list of global issues that are most relevant for today’s youth.
  5. Developing a series of audio and video podcasts for wider dissemination amongst youth.