Our Youth Policy
Despite Turkey being a country with a very young population, young people are not sufficiently represented in decision-making mechanisms, cannot access local and national decision-making mechanisms, are faced with social prejudices from childhood and experience inequality of opportunity, cannot be sufficiently included in the workforce, and especially young women are far behind in EU countries in both education and participation in the workforce. Therefore, providing young people with opportunities and experiences that support their successful integration into society and enable them to become active and responsible members of society and agents of change is of great importance, especially for the International Association of Women in Sustainable Development (USKD).
USKD's youth policies, which are based on human rights and democratic standards, are opportunity-oriented, include individuals in the formulation and implementation processes regardless of gender, create conditions for learning, opportunity and experience, and are based on solid data collection, are drawn from the perspective below:
Accordingly, USKD:
It accepts every individual between the ages of 1-15-29 as young people and approaches each of them with the understanding of a resource and works with the awareness of becoming stronger together in order to enable them to realize their full potential and actively participate in society.
2- USKD works with young people in order to include them in the process during the creation of youth policy and to ensure their direct participation in the implementation, supervision and development of projects and activities.
3- In the projects it carries out regarding youth, USKD acts with the principle of producing needs-oriented projects by taking into account the different needs of different young people.
4-Works to eliminate the gender gap between men and women in digital technologies and artificial intelligence by supporting disadvantaged youth, girls and young women to access and fully participate in technological developments free from gender discrimination.
5- USKD supports young people to live in a way appropriate to their age group, encouraging their independence and critical thinking.
6- USKD clearly recognizes the civil society sector working in the field of youth and encourages young people to participate in such civil society organizations.
7- USKD works in joint cooperation and coordination with local governments and the government and works with municipalities to develop local youth action plans so that youth can participate in the decisions taken by the administrations. USKD communicates with all stakeholders to reach "European" and "international" standards.
8- USKD implements projects to create more opportunities for youth in education and employment, to develop mutual solidarity between society and young people, and to improve young people's access to society and their full participation.
9- Supporting young people in the field of entrepreneurship, it organizes events that encourage innovative young entrepreneurs with mentoring, role model studies and inspiring success stories.
10- USKD produces projects in collaboration with the university and business world regarding the NEET group, that is, the young group that is neither employed nor educated and undertakes studies to eliminate the causes of NEET.
Seeing the new generation as an opportunity rather than a threat, the International Association of Women in Sustainable Development (USKD) has created short- and long-term action plans to ensure that the youth strategy is concrete and transparent, to develop the reflex of working together across generations, and to effectively benefit from the creative talents of young people.
Under the guidance of the Youth Commission, which is established with volunteer young people, USKD continues its work with the vision of supporting the individual development of young people in the fields of education, health, science, technology, etc. that they need, and that no young person is left behind.