Attributes of a Good YAN Project 

YAN projects should provide an appropriate context for the acquisition of important technical and social skills and the development of young people’s positive attitude towards their own self and their community. In order to achieve these goals, YAN projects should emphasize:

Youth participation: As part of YAN, youth should be actively involved in every step from framing the problem to be addressed to implementing the actual solution. Instead of using maps or other ready-made representations right from the beginning, we encourage young people to first externalize their own perceptions, identify variables that are meaningful to them, and only then seek for other sources of information. Adults may come up with themes and ideas, but those should always be presented as suggestions that could be chosen or not by the other participants of the team. The goal is to create an environment in which youth feel respected and encouraged to express their opinions.

Concrete neighborhood change: An ideal YAN project involves youth going out into the community, interviewing residents, visiting local organizations, taking pictures, building representations and, based on that, identifying personally relevant neighborhood challenges they would like to tackle. The emphasis is placed in a youth-generated plan to implement something concrete – the remodeling of a public space, the organization of a community event, the creation of a voluntary service – to address the issue. By focusing on the implementation of solutions to locally perceived challenges, YAN projects help participants go beyond discussion and information manipulation, deepen young people’s understanding of things that affect their lives, and open a space for youth to do something constructive about those issues.

Human connectivity: YAN projects provide direct opportunity for youth to internalize the values of teamwork. They also offer a meaningful context for youth and adults to work side-by-side with a common purpose. Moreover, by way of mentorship programs, visits to business and community organizations, presentations and other events, projects – and the network itself – may facilitate connections between the participants and people from different backgrounds, expertise and social levels with whom they may otherwise not interact with in their daily lives. Indeed, the local success of YAN depends directly on the interaction and collaboration of the people involved. Although challenges may be similar, sites differ in terms of structure, expertise and resource availability. The strength of the network comes from recognizing the value of diversity at all levels and providing a fertile soil in which both complementary and reinforcing connections can grow.

Contextualized use of technology: Even though projects are not technology-driven, they should provide an appropriate context for youth to learn about digital tools and explore how they can be combined with other materials and social support towards the creation of things that are important to their lives. In fact, through the development of their projects, young people may realize that they do not necessarily need digital tools to better their communities. However, they may also realize that the wise use of those tools may greatly enhance the development of their ideas.

Story-telling: In addition to enacting community change, a central tenet of YAN includes the production of a video (or some other compelling form of documentation) to reflect the motivation, the process, the outcomes and the lessons learned with their project. These videos and other media will be available at the YAN website to extend the reach of the ideas and promote discussion. Moreover, they will serve as personal souvenirs that kids can reference when talking about their accomplishments.

Recognition: The end of the project is signified with a community celebration party organized for kids to tell the stories of their projects and share the inspiration with youth and community members. That event also provides an opportunity to show the videos and recognize the efforts of everyone who contributed to the initiative.

Fun: The most important feature of all activities and projects should be fun. The activities should be so designed that the young participants enjoy learning about their communities and bringing about a social change there rather than the activities being forced upon them.