Selene Biffi talks to i-genius about how she came to be involved in youth work and what prompted her to set up Youth Action for Change (YAC).  Starting out on a very small scale from Selene’s bedroom in Italy, YAC has now become a groundbreaking global organisation, garnering prestigious recognition for its work.  Selene shares her advice to young people who want to make a difference in thier communities, emphasising that the smallest endeavours can often create momentous change, underlining that ‘you don’t have to be extraordinary to do extraodrinary things’…

Editor: How did you first become involved in working with young people?
Selene: I have been involved with charity works for quite some years now, having started during high school. Back then I was mainly helping out with the NGO my parents founded, resulting in a hospital and primary school in a deprived area in the countryside, close to Varanasi (Benares), India.

My first chance to get involved came with the Oxfam International Youth Parliament (OIYP, now called Oxfam International Youth Partnerships), as they posted a survey on young people and Globalisation on their website, in 2002. It resulted in a booklet called ‘Youth Guide to Globalisation’, an a couple of thoughts of mine were selected for publication.

Just one year later, OIYP was to carry out a project in partnership with UNESCO, and they aimed at organising a series of ten youth-led workshops worldwide. I sent in an application form for consideration, but not being an Action Partner at that time (I became one in 2004, eventually), resulted in my application being turned down at first. After some time, I was offered the chance to organise the only European workshop of the whole series, providing I could do that with little money. I accepted, and in April 2003 I organised and chaired the workshop at Università Bocconi in Milan, Italy. People from some 10 different countries attended the workshop, and the results were published by UNESCO in ‘All Different, All Unique: Young People and the UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity’.

Editor: What inspired you to set up YAC? How long has it been running?
Selene: In 2004, I was selected to attend the second OIYP in Sydney as an Action Partner, my area of action being ‘Education’. To be selected, prospective Action Partners had to present a social action plan to fall within ten different categories, which would then result in enhanced social and economic conditions for communities around the world. My plan revolved around the creation of Youth Action for Change, that had to fill in the void of youth-led organisations here in Italy. YAC had to work nationally only, helping young Italians to go to conferences and becoming global active citizens – as apathy is king here, and the Civil Society has not acknowledged its role and power to bring about changes in most urgent matters.

While at the OIYP though, I noticed that there were many young people who, admiringly, had been running their own organisations and programs for a few years, and were particularly knowledgeable in different skills such as PR, Marketing, Fundraising and so on. On the other hand, there were many more young people who, like me, were committed to do something good for their community, but lacked most skills to effectively doing so. I then decided to take the initial idea of YAC a step further, by making it a global program, so as to inspire and empower young people worldwide to become active change makers in their own communities.

I started planning for YAC shortly after the event, and the first online course – on Sustainable Development, taught by Rosa Mabel Toribio Hinostroza of Peru, also an OIYP Action Partner – was offered in January 2005.

Editor: How successful has the ‘peer to peer’ methodology been? Do you think there is potential for this to be introduced to other organisations?
Selene: YAC has been the first organisation ever to take the peer-to-peer methodology and apply it to offer free youth-taught online courses and activities. In the past, this methodology was mainly used in tackling issue like Reproductive Health or HIV/AIDS, while YAC successfully applied it to offer knowledge and skills in areas such as Sustainable Development, Human Rights, Gender Issues and many more. To date it has been used for some 14 online courses and initiatives, and has reached out to some 1200 young people and youth-led organisations in approximately 120 countries.

Along with our courses, we have offered edialogues with youth leaders and experts (an edialogue on ‘Trade Justice’ was offered by a former ambassador to the WTO). All of our activities are offered to participants totally free of charge, and the organisation is totally youth-led and runs on an extremely tight budget. Our teachers – young people themselves – and adult experts alike, all offer their time and expertise voluntarily.

YAC has a Board of Advisers composed of 6 young people plus a special adviser (a former Director of the Youth and Sport Division of UNESCO), and all of its operations are carried out online.

Throughout our courses and other initiatives we also partner with organisations which can offer knowledge and expertise in the area of the current courses; for example, the current course on Sustainable Development had the opening speech made by the UNEP Director for Asia and the Pacific, and a chat with the Director of the Earth Charter Youth Initiative. As a matter of fact, all of our courses offer both, theoretical as well as practical knowledge and skills, and participants are required to submit essays, complete wiki entries and, above all, reach to their peers who have no internet access as well as their communities with small community development programs, thus effectively acting as multipliers and change makers (starting mall youth-led initiatives is a prerequisite for obtaining a certificate of completion in many of our courses). Thanks to our courses, young people in Pakistan successfully lobbied to have a regional youth policy drafted and implemented, young people in Kenya biked around the country to spread information about HIV/AIDS and young people in the Philippines trained human rights activists to document violations in indigenous communities.

Because of our groundbreaking activities, YAC has received several praises and awards from organisation the likes of the UN, the World Bank, Oxfam IYP, Ashoka, Associated Press, OneWorld, IYF/Nokia, the Council of Europe and many others. YAC is also the only youth-led organisation in Italy to be member of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UN-DESD) and the only youth-led organisation in Europe to be part of the Community of Expertise on ‘Youth Social Technopreneurship’ of the UN Global Allaince of ICTs and Development (UN-GAID).

This exemplifies the impact and the potential of the peer-to-peer methodology, and how, if coupled with the cost-effectiveness of ICTs, this can really become a best practice in youth and community empowerment. After YAC, the same methodology has been adapted by a few youth-led organisations in the US, and even the UN has partnered with YAC to offer an online course for young people later this year.

Editor: What have been your major challenges and how did you overcome them?
Selene: When I first started, I had very little knowledge of youth empowerment and participation, apart from being a young person myself. I also had no track record whatsoever, and definitely had not much money to be spent on this venture. On top of it all, I was still a student and lived in Italy, a country that, despite being a G8 member, leaves no room to young people at all, unless they have support from the Church or political parties.

Volunteers and I started working hard on YAC to pull bits and pieces together, with a lot of passion and belief in this organisation, and started really small – I was operating it from my bedroom, and I still do.

It was very hard to make people understand my model of change and the unparalleled potential, especially because there were no other models to refer to, YAC was the first on of its kind. Things have not been easy throughout the journey, but people eventually started understanding what we were all about, and stopped looking at us suspiciously – at least abroad.

With major awards coming in, YAC got a lot of attention and was lucky enough to be able to present its activities at several youth conferences in the US and other countries. Unfortunately though, things have changed very little here in Italy, and we still struggle to make people understand that young people have the energy and the commitment to change things for the better, if only given the chance to do so.

Editor: What advice would you give to young people who want to make a real difference in the world?
Selene: Young people account for half of the world’s population, yet they are the most untapped resources to date. However, for the first time in history, the have the chance to do something themselves, without having to wait for their governments or other institutions.

If I could give them a small advice, I would tell them that, no matter their background, no matter the issue they intend to curb, they can still do something as individuals. You do not have to change the world by yourself, but you can definitely join young people around the world affecting change in their communities, in their backyards even. Many small efforts lead to change eventually, and everyone has the power and the responsibility to make this happen.

Editor: What are your hopes for the future of YAC?
Selene: I do hope to make YAC even more useful to young people out there by adding new and enhanced features and programs. I would like to offer our programs in different languages, build new free online tools and create more partnerships with organisations and institutions worldwide, with Universities also, should it be possible. As an ‘aging’ youth activist, I plan to keep an eye on YAC in the future as well while handing it over to young people, as I am sure I will likely be planning to launch new and exciting social ventures – social ventures are infectious, once you start you cannot stop!

Editor: What does being a ‘social entrepreneur’ mean to you?
Selene: Being a ‘social entrepreneur’ to me mainly means to try finding creative solutions to world’s plagues while staying true to oneself. You do not have to be extraordinary to do extraordinary things, just an ordinary person with a passion for change. Social Entrepreneurship allows me to do so, and along the way, it shows me that you can do a lot of good stuff with little resources and a lot of perseverance, and possibly, leading you to the path to becoming your best self.