Introduction

Ways of Changing the World

YAN projects can be based upon certain ideologies to bring about community change with kids. Following are the ideologies (three ways of changing the world) that can guide the projects to be undertaken:

• Direct Action: Try to solve the social issue yourself. For example, collecting all the garbage spread on the streets of your neighborhood yourself. This approach solves the problem but it would be difficult to adopt the same approach for problems on a bigger scale
• Building Awareness: Take steps to make other people in the community aware of the poblems . For example, by creating and distributing flyers or creating a website about the garbage disposal problem in the neighborhood will build awareness towards the issue in the community. But the drawback of this approach is that it builds awareness that helps in preventing the problem from occuring in the future, but it may not necessarily solve the problem at the present time.
• Contacting Decision Makers: Try to get in touch with people who have the official responsibility to take care of a problem in the community. For example, send a letter to the local government or the local company responsible for collecting garbage in the area. This approach is good if you want to address a long term problem. However, the actual solution will only take place if the decision maker finds the issue relevant.
• Combination of the Above: This method will perhaps be one of the most effective ways of dealing with complicated cases. For example, you can invite everyone in the community to clean one particular street of the neighborhood on a certain date and invite the decision maker and the Press to be there as well. This way you can solve the present problem and help people in preventing it from happening in the future. Also make sure that you are going to get all the required support.