1. Our organization is the FAU Social Forum, which we hope to be a small-scale version of the World Social Forum and U.S. Social Forum. We started it in Fall 2006 at Florida Atlantic University, so we are still in the beginning stages. We are working on our membership and our main goals are to educate about neoliberalism and social forums, to work with community groups who are affected by or opposed to neoliberal policies, and to bring together many different individuals, community groups, academics, and NGOs at an FAU Social Forum, as well as to attend the U.S. Social Forum.
2. Is Youth Activism Still Alive?
3. 4 identify as women, 1 identifies as a person of color, 2 are 25 or under, 1 is an immigrant
4. Saturday, June 30th - strategizing. We will show how youth activism could be mobilized within the global justice movement.
5. small group discussion
6. less than 25 people
7. The discussion will be on youth activism. We want the participants to take away the idea that contrary to popular belief, there is still youth activism. We would like to show different forms youth activism has taken and how it could be used for the purposes of social forums and activism in response to neoliberalism. One of the forms discussed will be our own organization, which is an example of a scale shift of the World Social Forum down to the University level, where it is mostly youth activism. The session will connect to the USSF Crosscutting Themes by looking at youth activism that addresses problems and oppressions that are seemingly unrelated but could be connected under neoliberalism and capitalism. We also will try to show youth activism's progression from the past to present, and across different countries or in reaction to transnational issues. It also relates to the themes because we believe youth activism is still alive and that it could be utilized more in the global justice movement if more people were educated about it and made to see that many of these issues are connected. The participants will be engaged through a small group discussion and a presentation of forms of youth activism. Our presentation will be in English and we will not provide oral interpretation or equipment. We will provide handouts in English. The biggest challenge our organization faces is that we are having trouble recruiting and maintaining members, especially since so many students have so many other things going on in their lives. The alternative we propose is to mobilize youth activists in the global justice movement. The strategies we provide to achieve this alternative include educating young people about neoliberalism and the global justice movement and showing them how the different movements they are a part of often connect.