HOW TO BUILD A YOUTH WING

More documents

Recommendations

Info

“VOLUNTARY WORK IS AN INDISPENSABLE PART OF OUR PROGRAMME” The Freedom and Justice Party has set itself an ambitious target: The recruitment of 3 million new and active party members within the next three years. The future work of the volunteers will be essential for the party’s efforts to prove to the Egyptian population that they can make a real difference. After the Egyptian revolution, the Freedom and Justice Party quickly became Egypt’s major player in terms of members and influence. Affiliates to the Muslim Brotherhood and people from outside signed up without the party even running any membership campaigns. After one year of existence, the party in the Giza governorate alone, where Aly Khafagy is Head of the Youth Committee, counts 23, 000 members of which more than half are between the ages of 18 and 35. “Our advantage in terms of recruiting new members was obviously our historical experience. We have a strong heritage from the Muslim Brotherhood. During many years people have seen our work in the street and in the villages. They know who we are and they trust us. Furthermore, people here are quite religious, and we were the first religious party people could join,” says Aly Khafagy. To form a new party and the introduction of all the new members ensuring they were all in line with party politics was an enormous logistical and organizational challenge. All members go through a one year affiliation period before they will move on to “Level 2” and thereby get access to the voting and formal decision making bodies. During the affiliation period they are offered an introduction programme to politics, youth, economy, rules and perspectives, etc. In return, the members are expected to participate in the training and in volunteer activities in order to move further to Level 2. “For us it is important to get people directly involved from the beginning. We involve them in the political work and in the social work,” says Aly Khafagy, explaining that the ambition for the coming years is 3 million new and active members, and that these people are to play a very active role within the party – and the Egyptian society as a whole: “We have a big challenge in front of us, we need to correct the perception people have of us today and we will do that by showing results and bringing practical changes to people’s lives. We will be doing this through our political decisions and through the social work in the streets and in the villages by large groups of volunteers,” says Aly Khafagy, acknowledging that a lot of experience and lessons learned are still to be harvested: “Until now people tend to stay with us, but it is still very early to say how it will be in the future. But as we say: Tell me, and I will forget; show me, and I will remember; involve me, and I will stay forever. We need to get people involved – and there is work enough for everybody.” HOW TO BUILD A YOUTH WING DANIsH INsTITUTe fOr pArTIes AND DemOcrAcY pAGe 36
FIVE TOPICS TO CONSIDER AND DECIDE UPON 1st TOPIC COMMUNICATING YOUR PLAN OF ACTION Members are key to any youth wing. As we touched upon in the previous chapter a lot of parties find themselves in a continuous effort to recruit new members and keep them within the organisation. A lot of political debates and capacity building (and thereby also the retention) of your members can be carried out through well planned internal communications. A good starting point for the elaboration of a member communication strategy is therefore to look at your political programme and ask yourselves and a group of members: How can our communication with members support us in reaching our political targets? What new information do our members have a need for? Through which media should we reach them? How often? And how can we involve members in communication work and engage them in the communication of the political messages? 2nd TOPIC THE CONTENT OF THE COMMUNICATION Knowledge is power. Some youth organisations underline the importance of reaching all members with the same communication at the same time – and also, on the other hand, to be careful not to overload members with too many emails. For the general overview, you might choose to group the content of your communication in the different categories listed below. These are all examples to inspire your communication discussion. You will want to add some and exclude others according to your resources and ambitions. You will probably not want all of your newsletters for instance to include all your categories of content. But your list will make you aware if you are omitting content you were actually keen on touching upon. Your priorities will – together with all other parts of your communication – be your external face. This is how the members, and others, will perceive you. Content-list for Inspiration: ´ Activities and planning of coming events: What, where and when – are more members needed to join the preparations? ´ Political analysis: Develop this discipline over time. Invite people from outside to give you advice or provoke you. Or start a relay between members. One member gives her/his analysis of the week – and passes the baton to another member. HOW TO BUILD A YOUTH WING DANIsH INsTITUTe fOr pArTIes AND DemOcrAcY pAGe 37
Page 1 and 2: danish institute for parties and de
Page 3 and 4: HOW TO BUILD A YOUTH WING 30 TOPICS
Page 5 and 6: perform a number of vital functions
Page 7 and 8: CASeS “If you really want to star
Page 9 and 10: GREETINGS FROM DENMARK Youth politi
Page 11 and 12: THE ISSUE When you start building a
Page 13 and 14: FIVE TOPICS TO CONSIDER AND DECIDE
Page 15 and 16: Do the committees lay down their ow
Page 17 and 18: “IT’S WORTH ALL THE HOURS OF VO
Page 19 and 20: THE ISSUE Being the youth wing of a
Page 23 and 24: 3rd TOPIC WAYS TO DEBATE AND DECIDE
Page 25 and 26: “WE ARE JUST TOTALLY PASSIONATE A
Page 27 and 28: THE ISSUE One of the most important
Page 31 and 32: 4th TOPIC RETAINING MEMBERS There i
Page 33 and 34: “START LISTENING, STOP TALKING”
Page 35: THE ISSUE An important tool for kee
Page 39 and 40: The Newsletter is a good supplement
Page 41 and 42: “WHY PEOPLE STAY WITH US - AND WH
Page 43 and 44: THE ISSUE every youth wing will hav
Page 47 and 48: mother party will work jointly for
Page 49 and 50: ”YOU JUST CANNOT OVERESTIMATE THE
Page 51 and 52: THE ISSUE for some youth wings, cam
Page 55 and 56: 4th TOPIC THE INVOLVEMENT OF VOLUNT
Page 57 and 58: “GENERATION GARBAGE CAN UNITE TO
Page 59 and 60: © DIPD Danish Institute for Partie

HOW TO BUILD A YOUTH WING

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?