Global Youth Work
Youth 2030: promoting Global Youth Work and Development Education to advance the Sustainable Development Goals in the Youth Work Sector
Global Youth Work
Global Youth Work is essentially good youth work, which responds to young people’s changing circumstances. Global Youth Work is about discovering global issues with young people through non-formal education. The aim is to explore a young person’s role in their local community, and within a globalised world.
It recognises that globalisation (the process of the world becoming more and more interconnected, mainly through trade, aid, culture, and communications) increasingly influences young people’s lives and environments, creating new opportunities, challenges, and concerns.
Global youth work aims to empower young people to develop the knowledge and skills to engage with these issues and explore their own values, beliefs, and connections with the wider world. Connecting with global youth work is simply identifying the significance, relevance or potential within your existing practice and linking to that.
About Global Youth Work & Development Education
Global youth work and development education explores global issues with young people (poverty, inequality, hunger, injustice, and climate change, etc) through non-formal education.
Global youth work explores the role young people have in their local community as well as their connection to the broader, globalised world.
Youth2030
Youth2030 is a global youth work and development education project funded by Irish Aid, which strives to increase the integration, quality, and spread of global youth work and development education in non-formal youth work education, organisations, and projects.
Its aim is to create an enabling and coherent policy and practice environment for global youth work at both a national, European, and global level. We want to enhance the quality delivery, impact, and communication of global youth work, and to support further mainstreaming of quality global youth work.
Climate Justice
Climate change will affect people and places in different ways. This will bring about inequalities between and within countries and communities, and could lead to conflict between current and future generations. Climate change will therefore lead to injustice.
We have an opportunity now to do something about this and YOU can be a change maker – personally, locally, nationally, and globally.
Youth2030’s aim is for young people to take informed action on global inequalities and injustices, through the framework of the sustainable development goals and using a development education practice.
To do this, the NYCI Youth2030 Global Youth Work team endeavour to increase the integration of quality global youth work and development education in non-formal youth work, and to increase the number of young people engaging with it. This includes supporting young people and organisations in their journey, through training, capacity development and by fostering a global youth work and development education policy environment.
To achieve this, we provide support to both young people and youth workers in the following ways:
Watch Dr. Momodou Sallah speak about global youth work.
- Mapping quality global youth work and development education projects around the sustainable development goals in Ireland.
- Delivering information and resources on the sustainable development goals with a dedicated resource to support you in a youth work context.
- NYCI runs One World Week every year for youth-led advocacy focusing on a number of the SDGs and on specific global issues.
- Including promoting climate justice as an instrument to a more just and equal world.
- Watch our climate justice introductory video.
- Explore 2019’s One World Week’s Climate Revolution resource to understand how you can link this with your youth work.
- Learn more on our dedicated climate justice page.
- Building knowledge, understanding and skills for action to achieve climate justice through our training.
- Ensuring young peoples voices are heard through our Young People’s Committee, through our Youth Summit and other events throughout the year.
- Providing accessible learning opportunities to young people through partnering with SpunOut for a podcast series on sustainable development.
- Listen to our 2019/2020 podcast series in partnership with Spunout.ie, ‘Change the World’, which amplified young people’s voices on the sustainable development goals.
- Supporting projects financially through One World Week Mini Grants in previous years.
- Developing a module with Maynooth University on global youth work and development education for youthworkandyou.org.
- Publishing up-to-date resources on global youth work in the Irish youth sector context.
- Providing upskilling opportunities for youth workers and educators through an extensive training programme.
- Including an innovative and exciting new course, Development Education and Games in Youth Work, to enable youth workers to design and create games to strengthen their practice while focussing on development education issues.
- Mentoring the next global youth workers in our specifically-designed Certificate in Global Youth Work and Development Education with NUI Maynooth.
- Working collaboratively with Leargas to embed a global youth work and development education approach to the education and training of youth workers.
- Connecting the global youth work and development education community in Ireland through our Global Youth Work Learners Network.
- Supporting projects financially through One World Week Mini Grants in previous years.
- Providing good practice tools and guidelines to the youth sector, including accessible tools for monitoring and evaluating your projects.
- Consider ‘Why evaluate a global youth work approach?’ with this short video that includes an introduction to a monitoring and evaluation approach for global youth work.
- Supporting your practice development, through our Global Youth Work and Development Education Good Practice Guidelines.
One World Week
One World Week is a week of youth-led awareness raising, education and action that takes place throughout Ireland during the third week in November every year.
During One World Week young people learn about local and global justice issues and are empowered to take action to bring about positive change. Young people and those who work with young people from all over the country undertake activities from the education pack.
Some organise public events, quizzes and debates, invite guest speakers or have intercultural evenings. Many groups publicly display the work they have done in preparation for One World Week, or lead other people in doing a public action.
Global Youth Work Training, Networking & Events
The NYCI Youth 2030 Global Youth Work team provides tailor-made training in global youth work and development education to youth work organisations and youth educators.
We continue to foster these connections through our specifically-identified networks and events.
- View our upcoming trainings and events, and book your place now.
- Our most comprehensive training to-date, NYCI has developed a Certificate in Global Youth Work and Development Education in conjunction with NUI Maynooth.
- During November each year, we celebrate One World Week, often providing specific training opportunities to accompany the year’s theme.
- Currently creating an innovative and exciting new course, Development Education and Games in Youth Work, to enable youth workers to design and create games to strengthen their practice while focussing on development education issues over five two-hour online workshops.
- Providing training in climate justice to promote advocacy and action.
- Currently developing an online global youth work module on youthworkandyou.org.
NYCI can provide tailor made training in global youth work and development education to your organisation. The NYCI global youth work and development education training is designed for youth work practitioners, including youth workers, leaders and students, development educators, peer educators and youth work trainers.
NYCI’s vision for global youth work and development education training within the youth sector is one where youth work practitioners are given the opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to deliver quality global youth work, and inspire the young people with whom they work to act for a more just and equal world. Trainings are interactive and designed to support you to develop confidence as well as practical skills to deliver quality global youth work opportunities in your youth work.
If you are interested in global youth work, development education, or global justice training contact NYCI to discuss how we can tailor make a training to suit your specific needs.
- Connecting the global youth work community in Ireland through the NYCI Youth Work Learners Network.
- Ensuring young people’s voices are heard through our Young People’s Committee .
- Liaising and collaborating with our Youth 2030 Consortium partners: Trocaire, Concern and the Centre for Youth Research and Development, Maynooth University.
- Providing accessible learning opportunities to young people through partnering with SpunOut.ie for a podcast series on sustainable development.
- Listen to our 2019/2020 podcast series in partnership with Spunout.ie, ‘Change the World’, which amplified young people’s voices on the sustainable development goals.
- Every year, NYCI host One World Week, a week of youth-led awareness raising, education and action.
- Youth 2030 Conference on Stories of Impact: We are developing a project area to showcase the benefits of engaging with a global youth work over time, the growth journey that happens and the transformative outcomes.
- In July 2020 we launched our Youth Manifesto on Climate Justice, led by the NYCI Youth 2030 Young People’s Committee and officially launched by Mary Robinson.
- You can sign the manifesto and pledge your support on our website.
Development Education News
We’re hiring: Development Officer – Capacity Development and Training
Do you have experience in training and capacity building with youth organisations? Our Global Youth Work team wishes to recruit a Development Officer – Capacity Development […]
Graduation of the NUI Certificate in Global Youth Work and Development Education
It was all sunshine and smiles on the beautiful south campus of Maynooth NUI for the 2022 NUI Certificate in Global Youth Work and Development Education graduation ceremony, on the 25th of March 2023.
We’re hiring: Development Officer – Training and Membership Engagement
Do you have experience in training and capacity building with youth organisations? Our Global Youth Work team wishes to recruit a Development Officer - Training and […]
Contacting our team
You can keep up to date with the programme on our news page, through social media, or you can get in touch with us at valerie@nyci.ie
‘Youth 2030’, the National Programme for Global Youth Work and Development Education, is a partnership between the National Youth Council of Ireland and Irish Aid.
The National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) is working in consortia with Concern Worldwide, Maynooth University, and Trócaire to deliver global youth work and development education in the youth sector. This programme will run from December 2018 until December 2021 for the capacity development of the youth sector in the area of global youth work and development education.
