Following the 2006 CIVICUS World Assembly, it was clear that there was a need for an international youth-led forum for debate and dialogue on CIVICUS programme issues from the perspective of young people that could feed into, inform and shape the debate at future World Assemblies.
With this mandate, Oxfam in Scotland and the Scottish Youth Parliament combined forces to work in partnership to make this happen. They set up a new initiative to develop a youth led education programme focusing on political, economic and social justice issues.
The initiative was funded by the BIG Lottery in Scotland and is called ’Roars not Whispers’. It has developed as a youth led peer education, leadership and activism project which helps facilitate and encourage civil society participation by 16–25 year olds in Scotland and also goes on to raise awareness of UK national and International issues.
The CIVICUS Youth Assembly is hosted by, and as part of the Roars not Whispers project in Glasgow, Scotland.
An International Youth Steering group leads on developing and linking the Youth Assembly programme closely to that of the CIVICUS World Assembly to ensure that young people globally can have a voice and be heard during the World Assembly.
The inaugural Youth Assembly was held in May 2007 and 150 young people came from 66 Countries. The 2008 Event will be the final CIVICUS Assembly to be held in Scotland before the series moves on to another part of the World, however with the outstanding success of the 2007 has already seen CIVICUS move to ensure that the Youth Assembly will remain a part of the World Assembly, wherever it is held.