europe posts

01.05.12 - YourCommonwealth wins ‘Communicator of the Year’ award
The Commonwealth Secretariat’s Youth Affairs Division has scooped ‘Communicator of the Year Award 2012’ for its innovative youth-led website YourCommonwealth.org. Director Katherine Ellis and Youth Affairs Officer Layne Robinson received the award on 26 April at an inaugural ceremony in London to mark 63 years since the establishment of the modern Commonwealth. Mr Robinson asked for [...] ... more

12.04.12 - ILO launches a video contest on Decent Work for Youth
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has launched a video contest for young people (from 18 to 29 years) to show how the global jobs crisis is affecting their lives. Three winners will be invited to Geneva (all expenses paid) to attend the ILO Youth Employment Forum, to be held from 23-25 May 2012, where they [...] ... more

05.04.12 - Jubilee Time Capsule: Final Call for Community Reporters
Commonwealth Community Reporters With just over two months to go until the official Diamond Jubilee weekend in June, young writers and Commonwealth Correspondents are being encouraged to become Commonwealth Community Reporters for the Jubilee Time Capsule. A digital Diamond Jubilee initiative, the Jubilee Time Capsule is a crowd-sourced People’s History of the last 60 years [...] ... more

05.04.12 - “Could Mozambique and Kenya suffer the same fate as Nigeria?”
Several sub-Saharan African countries have recently discovered oil and gas reserves, yet question marks remain over who precisely will benefit from their newfound wealth. Denise Juvane, 19, a student from Mozambique now living in England, reports. With oil and gas seemingly scarce commodities, many developing countries are battling to acquire their fair share. But is the [...] ... more

23.03.12 - Commonwealth Writers: A World of New Fiction
To mark the 25th anniversary of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2011, the Commonwealth Foundation re-launched its prizes to form part of Commonwealth Writers. The prizes act as catalysts to target and identify talented writers from different regions who will go on to inspire and inform their local communities. Commonwealth Writers – a World of [...] ... more

20.03.12 - Commonwealth youth set for online course in development
Youth Programme links with Commonwealth of Learning to develop pilot course on Commonwealth values One hundred young participants from four regions of the Commonwealth will participate in a 10-week live pilot of the Embracing Commonwealth Values (CV) eLearning course on 1 May, 2012. This online course will transform the paper-based Diploma for Youth Development into [...] ... more

10.02.12 - “The Only Way Is Essex: Is that how teenagers live in Britain?”
‘Trashy’ British television shows are often far removed from reality, but they can still teach young people important life lessons, according to Denise Juvane, 19, a student from Mozambique now living in England. With TV programmes such as “The Only Way Is Essex” and “Skins”, is the British media portraying stories which are far from reality? [...] ... more

04.01.12 - HIV/AIDS: Ten big stories in 2011
It’s been a roller coaster of a year in HIV and AIDS. AIDS turned 30 in 2011, and with new evidence of the effectiveness of HIV treatment as prevention, experts are increasingly talking about “the end of AIDS”. At the same time, however, funding for HIV has become ever more uncertain, jeopardizing efforts to put [...] ... more

01.12.11 - “Getting to Zero” – World AIDS Day Message
The theme for 2011 World AIDS Day is “Getting to Zero”.  A theme that is appropriate as it urges everyone to join in the fight against HIV and AIDS to ensure that we get to ZERO — Zero new infections; Zero discrimination; Zero AIDS related deaths. Since the discovery of this deadly virus (30 years [...] ... more

24.10.11 - Putting youth at the centre of decision making
Youth representatives from all over the Commonwealth countries of the world, including the Pacific region, are packing their bags for Perth, Western Australia in preparation for this month’s Commonwealth Youth Forum (CYF8), which will be held from 23 to 27 October 2011. The Commonwealth Youth Forum takes place every two years just prior to the [...] ... more