International Youth Day 2020

International Youth Day 2020 is on 12 August, and was designated International Youth Day by the UN General Assembly in 1999. The day serves as an annual celebration of the role of young women and men as essential partners in change, and as an opportunity to raise awareness of challenges and problems facing the world’s youth.

The theme of this years International Youth Day is “Youth Engagement for Global Action”, and seeks to highlight the ways in which young people at the local, national and global levels are enriching national and multilateral institutions and processes, as well as draw lessons on how their representation and engagement in formal institutional politics can be significantly enhanced.

More information is available on the dedicated UN International Youth Day web page and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs youth web page.

The latest copy of the War Cry (25 July) ran a feature about this asking young people from around the NZFTS territory to speak up about what matters to them, answering the following questions:

What issue is most pressing for you globally, nationally or locally and why?

As a young person what forums are open to you for responding to that issue?

In what ways does The Salvation Army help you to contribute to change?

How does your faith influence the issues you care about?

The article is also available on the Firezone website.

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To Save A Life – Discussion Starters

Today I have loaded some discussion starters to help parents open up the dialogue with their children on issues raised in the movie “To Save A Life“, which the AMPED youth group saw on Friday evening.

The film speaks to real-life challenges of teens and their choices, it deals with compelling issues like teen suicide, teen sex and pregnancy, divorce, peer-pressure, drug and alcohol abuse, bullying, and the need to appear in control during times of personal pain and strife. It shows how teens battle intense feelings of lonliness, rejection, frustration, stress, and depression in a variety of circumstances. These same realties affect every teenager walking the hallways of you local high school and their only lasting hope is found in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

The film vividly shows how loving God and loving others gives us the power to find true purpose and fulfillment in life. It also reminds us to stay aware of the pain and loneliness of others and compels us to reach out – especially to those struggling in our families, communities, schools and those on the fringe of acceptance by our culture.

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You may have noticed…

You may have noticed, albeit just briefly, a post that I’ve recently deleted called “To Save A Life” this was supposed to be a new page that I will be developing over the coming weeks as part of the AMPED Page…

We will be opening up some discussion on how we can ‘Change a Life’ one life at a time by being actively involved in the lives of our young people and their peers, so as to help them navigate the multitude of issues that they have to deal with in today’s society.

This will be kicked off on Friday evening by watching the movie ‘To Save A Life’ at our Youth Group/Bible Study with Attitude. And then on Sunday afternoons we will be discussing themes that come up from the movie…

Check here for more info…

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