ICP Releases Report on the Status of National Youth Service Policy in Eastern Europe and the Balkans

ICP

09 May 2007

The Innovations in Civic Participation (ICP), a non-profit organization that supports the promotion of youth civic participation through service, announces the release of a research report examining the presence of national youth service policies in 15 countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

National youth service policies as defined by ICP include legislation, strategies, laws, or regulations that support new or already existing programs that provide opportunities for youth to perform community service or volunteerism. The information presented in this report was generated via email communications between the researchers and individuals in each country with pertinent knowledge in the field.

Main findings from the exploratory study reveal that while none of the 15 countries in this region has a government policy for involving youth in service, movements to develop such policies do exist in several of the countries. The report describes these movements, as well as key barriers to the development of policies, and concludes with recommendations to policymakers for the creation of such policies.

�Prior to this study, research had not identified on a regional level the presence or absence of government-sponsored national youth service policies. The main findings of this study indicate that, in the Eastern European and Balkan region, the field of youth service is still in its infancy, especially compared to the Latin American and Caribbean region, which we examined in our first study�, said Edward Metz, the study�s principal author.

�However, in many of the countries we researched, domestic and international non-governmental organizations have been providing meaningful opportunities for youth to serve, and these opportunities appear to be raising general awareness about the positive role of service in the region� adds Metz.

The full report is available at this link.

Findings from the first regional policy scan of Latin America and the Caribbean found that 13 of 19 countries in this region have a national youth service policy. This report is being published in the forthcoming journal Service Enquiry II.

For more information, please contact Rose McGovern at rmcgovern@icicp.org.