2017 is a great year of learning for Youth For Rights and everyone!Youth for Rights 2017 was a RightsCon (RC) Satellite Event initiated by Access Now, Sinar Project and NetMission.Asia. The program was designed as a one-day workshop to educate and engage youth in policy and advocacy discussions around digital rights. Leaders of the digital rights community walked with participants through policy, advocacy, movement building, and technological debates on issues such as data protection and privacy, network discrimination and connectivity, digital security, diversity and digital inclusion, human rights, trade and business, and more.Throughout the workshop, we find ourselves sharing knowledges and experiences that contributed to each other; keynote speakers, participants and organizers.Purpose: why focusing on youth only?Discussions and policy decisions around legal, political and social issues within the scope of Internet policy have major impact on young people. Often, these discussions and decisions are made without including young people’s inputs and participation. Consequently, they have been sidelined despite being the largest demographic of Internet users.Locality: focusing on youthBy now, you must be thinking, what defines youth? In this case, RightsCon 2017 was held in Brussels which situated in the country of Belgium, in the region of Europe. Therefore, we refer to the European context of youth by targeting individuals in between the age of 18 to 30 years old.For this satellite event, we were warmly welcomed by 20 participants from around the world.
Scope: integrating RightsCon themesParticipation is the most crucial component in capacity building. For youth to participate in the discussions throughout RightsCon, they have to be equip with basic knowledge and critical know-how on digital rights topics. In supporting the conference’s themes, 5 sessions were introduced and included as the body of the workshop:1. Data Protection & Privacy2. Network Discrimination, Connectivity & Governance3. Human Rights, Trade & Business4. Freedom of Expression5. Advocacy – Capacity Building & Representing Youth VoiceMoving forward: looking for collaboration with youYouth For Rights (Y4R) offers learning workshops for youth with various backgrounds from around the world. Our goal is to enable the capacity and capability of younger generation on mapping the digital rights issues and solution in their respective communities. Please get in touch with us to discuss any challenges you have. We loved sharing ideas and experiences with you and we know there is always a room to improve and not reinventing the wheel.

The Birth of Youth For Rights

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