Tell your MP it's time to get fair!
We are calling on MPs and party leaders to sign a Poverty Pledge that commits them to increasing levels of income, together with affordable housing and fair access to public services, without discrimination.
Please send an email or a letter to your MP today, asking them what they will do to take action now and protect the poorest in our society who are hit hardest by the recession. Click here to read Article 12 in Scotland's open letter to Anne Begg, MP for Aberdeen South.
A new era of EU policies for youth
Entitled "Youth - Investing and Empowering", the new strategy acknowledges that young people are one of the most vulnerable groups in society, especially in the current economic and financial crisis, and in our ageing society, young people are a precious resource. the new strategy is cross-sectoral, with both short- and long-term actions.
The actions involve key policy areas that affect Europe's young people, particularly youth education, employment, creativity and entrepreneurship, social inclusion, health and sport, civic participation, and volunteering.
The new strategy also emphasises the importance of youth work and defines reinforced measures for a better implementation of youth policies at the EU level.
The strategy "Youth – Investing and Empowering", which is a follow-up to the renewed social agenda announced by the European Commission in 2008, has the following goals:
To create more opportunities for youth in education and employment
To improve access and full participation of all young people in society
World governments urged to do more to end the economic crisis
Policy experts from across civil society are calling for more concerted action on tax havens, reform of international financial institutions, a green economic recovery, social protection funding, financial system reform and climate change financing, if world leaders are to lift the world out of recession, and secure a fairer, greener future.
A new report from organisations involved in the Put People First mobilisation notes progress at the April G20 in steps towards better regulation of the banking system and increased transparency of tax havens. However it also finds that G20 leaders strengthened the institutions (such as the IMF) which were responsible for overseeing the policies that caused the crisis in the first place.
On 24-26 June, countries will discuss these issues at a UN Conference in New York, which, unlike the G20, all 192 member countries will be able to attend. Thereafter, attention turns the G8 Leaders’ Summit on 8-10 July, the G20 Leaders' Summit on 24-25 September and the G20 Finance Ministers' meeting in Scotland on 7-8 November.
Thanks to ongoing action, pressure is building on world governments to do more to offer help to the millions of workers now unemployed who are desperate to get back to work, to take action for the growing tens of millions worldwide the crisis is pushing into extreme poverty, and to begin the transition to a green world economy that could help prevent further catastrophic climate change.
After an 18 month blockade of Gaza and three weeks of heavy shelling the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now completely overwhelming. Thousands of people are struggling to survive with many having lost their homes and most down to their last supplies of food and only limited amounts of fresh drinking water.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has released its Concluding Observations and Recommendations on the State of children and young people's rights in the UK.
The report highlights a number of areas where the UK Government is failing to make rights a reality for all children and young people. Subjects covered include: Child Poverty, Juvenille Justice, including ASBOs in relation to freedom of assembly rights, Mental Health, Discrimination of Roma and Gypsy/Travellers, Asylum, Corporal Punishment, LGBT Youth, Looked After children and young people, Participation Rights: the right to voice an opinion, and have that opinion taken into account.
Young people from across Scotland telling it like it is!
Young people's views on Discrimination, Participation, Asylum Seekers and Refugees, Health, Looked After Children and Young People and Education: Article 12 in Scotland's alternative report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, a response to the UK Government's latest periodic report. A group of five young people from Article 12 in Scotland, who have been working on this project for almost two years, presented this report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (Geneva) on June the 11th 2008.
Click hereto download a copy of their formal presentation. Click hereto download a PDF copy of I WITNESS: THE UNCRC IN SCOTLAND.
If you would like a hard copy, Click hereto order.
If you prefer an audio versionClick here to download our podcasts which include
a summary of our report and further information on the UNCRC.
A new era of EU policies for youth