“If you could ask the United States government to do one thing, what would it be?”

This is a question that Youth United for Global Awareness and Action has asked their peers and youth throughout the world. Our presentation will share the voices of youth in the U.S.A. and throughout the world to share their ideas on change and find ways youth can work together in solidarity. This presentation will present artwork and videos done by students in Uganda, Pakistan, Finland, Dominican Republic and the U.S. In the workshop youth will use drama, poetry and visual art to get participants to answer these questions and create a final show at the end of the workshop. The participants will divide into three groups by interest: visual arts, theater arts and poetry. Within these groups participants will either design a piece of visual art, a piece or theater or a group poem as a response to our main question.

The language will be in English but will be translated in Spanish for the general group, but only one small group will have a member that can translate into Spanish. We do not have translation equipment. We will provide all handouts for the attendees in English and Spanish. As an organization one of our challenges is making the issues that we work on global issues concrete and actionable to the youth we work with and the youth we want to engage. Concretely we are building a constituency that advocates that the U.S. government cancel developing countries’ debt, allocate the necessary resources to fulfill their promise to achieve the Milleneum Development Goals, and develop more fair trade rules. We engage youth through three main programs school-to-school, where we link schools in the U.S. to schools in the over 60 countries we work in. We also develoop youth leadership through YUGA, a group of students ages 12-24 that meets to take action on our core issues, AIDS/ HIV, global poverty, child exploitation, sustainable environment finally we engage young people through projects which using the arts and media.