The Young Are Making Their World

It's Our World, Too is the invaluable companion to the award-winning We Were There, Too!: Young People in U.S. History. The book gives young readers the tools to bring about change. Many young people are seeking out ways to become constructively engaged in their world. This book couldn't be more timely. “Two books in one: first, fourteen fascinating accounts of children working for human rights, the needy, the environment, or world peace . . . Second, a handbook for young activists, with practical suggestions for planning, organizing, publicizing, and raising funds for social action projects.” -- Kirkus Reviews

Young people have long used popular culture to explore, define and express who they are. For many, popular culture is also a tool of survival. Gone are the days when proscriptive programs were needed for young people to transition to adulthood. Today, youth culture is communicated through information technology, particularly social media, enabling young people to engage the world. Yet, as always, youth culture is often a cause of concern for adults and policy makers. This collection of new essays focuses on modern youth popular culture. There are such topics as social justice and youth mobilization in Ferguson, Missouri, social media and sexual literacy among LGBT youth, and youth culture's influence on children's sports.

Meet 12 kids who have taken action to change their community, town, country, even the world in this inspiring new book! From donating birthday money to the local animal shelter to planting a billion trees worldwide, these kids stories will inspire you to make a difference!

Whatever the desires of your heart, Change Your World will guide you through the entire process to take action and start making an impact today right where you are. You can bring about positive, lasting change in the world and you don’t have to be rich and famous or lead a big organization to do it. Global leadership icons and bestselling authors John C. Maxwell and Rob Hoskins provide the inspiring and practical roadmap to get started being the change you want to see – in your community and beyond. Learn from the firsthand experiences shared by the authors from their work helping to transform communities, businesses, and millions of lives around the world. In Change Your World, Maxwell and Hoskins will show you how to: Identify your cause Live out the values that make a difference Become a catalyst for change Join the right team or recruit one of your own Work together with others to make a difference Measure your impact and keep improving For many of us, the world we live in feels broken yet change is easier than we think. You’ll not only be encouraged to make a difference based on the needs you see around you, but you’ll be equipped to implement change immediately.

Reveals the importance of innovation in American global competitiveness, profiling some of today's most compelling young innovators while explaining how they have succeeded through the unconventional methods of parents, teachers, and mentors.

Many young people today yearn to make a positive difference in the world—and not just when they’re grown up. Presented with an opportunity and support, they have the ability to do that. Alexander the Great, Joan of Arc, Mary Shelley, (author of Frankenstein) and Louis Braille (who created the Braille system), all made a major contribution to society before they were out of their teens. Although young people are idealistic, they have a sincere desire to help those less fortunate than they are in the world. However, the disheartening message that society sends them is, “Not yet; you’re too young to do anything important right now.” The 15 stories of young people from around the world described in Young Enough to Change the World are proof that this message is wrong. Each of these kids and teenagers has made a positive difference in the lives of others. Moreover, most of the projects are still going strong. As you will see, many of the heroes and heroines in this book began with a dream that grew and gained momentum and support in spite of a small beginning. It is remarkable what inspired youngsters and adolescents are capable of accomplishing. The key to their success has been their heartfelt passion and determination. There are genuine heroes of substance in every society often flying under the radar of media exposure, and not a few of them, as the stories in this book demonstrate, are young people whose commitment to helping others is awe inspiring. Fortunately, that commitment bodes well for the future of humanity. The young people whose philanthropic work is recorded here certainly possess the qualities of heroes—empathy, self-sacrifice, service, persistence, perseverance and commitment. These young heroes are not content to battle singlehandedly the misfortune and sorrow they see around them. They want an army of courageous young people, as determined as they are, to join them in the work of eliminating human suffering and hardship. They want many others, the young as well as the old, to work with them to make the effort required to bring about a healthier, more peaceful, more equitable world for all of us. Are you ready to join them?

Profiles ten children from around the world who took action against injustice, including eleven-year-old Andrew Adansi-Bonnah from Ghana, who raised thousands of dollars for refugee children in Somalia.

Soul Power is a cultural history of those whom Cynthia A. Young calls “U.S. Third World Leftists,” activists of color who appropriated theories and strategies from Third World anticolonial struggles in their fight for social and economic justice in the United States during the “long 1960s.” Nearly thirty countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America declared formal independence in the 1960s alone. Arguing that the significance of this wave of decolonization to U.S. activists has been vastly underestimated, Young describes how literature, films, ideologies, and political movements that originated in the Third World were absorbed by U.S. activists of color. She shows how these transnational influences were then used to forge alliances, create new vocabularies and aesthetic forms, and describe race, class, and gender oppression in the United States in compelling terms. Young analyzes a range of U.S. figures and organizations, examining how each deployed Third World discourse toward various cultural and political ends. She considers a trip that LeRoi Jones, Harold Cruse, and Robert F. Williams made to Cuba in 1960; traces key intellectual influences on Angela Y. Davis’s writing; and reveals the early history of the hospital workers’ 1199 union as a model of U.S. Third World activism. She investigates Newsreel, a late 1960s activist documentary film movement, and its successor, Third World Newsreel, which produced a seminal 1972 film on the Attica prison rebellion. She also considers the L.A. Rebellion, a group of African and African American artists who made films about conditions in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. By demonstrating the breadth, vitality, and legacy of the work of U.S. Third World Leftists, Soul Power firmly establishes their crucial place in the history of twentieth-century American struggles for social change.