Engaging Youth-Led and Youth-Serving Organizations in Disaster Relief Efforts

To support and encourage youth participation in emergency response efforts, this document provides concrete guidelines for engaging with youth and youth movements in crisis contexts by identifying approaches that have effectively included young people as actors in programming. This document primarily focuses on ways in which relief agencies can effectively engage with established networks such as youth sections of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, YMCA, Scouts and Guides associations. However, it is important to emphasize that most youth are not part of such networks and still manage to make valuable contributions in relief and recovery efforts. Thus, relief agencies should strive to develop an approach that assesses all local youth initiatives, collaborating with both individual, spontaneous efforts as well as established networks.