Give a Youth voice at GCARD2 through Social Media!

Getting Youth involved at the GCARD2!

Have you ever heard about the Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD 2) to be held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, 29 October – 1 November 2012?

The GCARD 2 will focus on the ways to implement the tasks identified in the GCARD RoadMap for enhancing agricultural research for development, with special attention to foresight, partnership and capacity building for innovation and impact on small-holder livelihoods. The purpose of the conference is to build strong cooperation around key forward-looking agendas, based on progress and lessons learned from experience, and plan joint actions among all stakeholders.

Learn more about GCARD2.
 

YPARD, the Young Professionals Platform for Agricultural Research for Development, with the support of the GCARD2 co-organizers GFAR and CGIAR, is working on getting youth strongly involved in this key event for agricultural research for development.
 

The objective of youth presence at the GCARD2 is to bring out the voice of the youth on several issues related to capacity development, give participants an unique opportunity to network, become more engaged with international AR4D and spread the news on youth discussions and ensure youth inclusion into debates, worldwide, through social networks.
 

Therefore, GCARD Youth delegation will join at the YPARD pre-event session on youth capacity building (on the 28th) to be fed in GCARD plenary.  In addition, an onsite Social Reporters group will focus on spreading the word and include youth worldwide to take part into the discussions!
 

Join the social media project remotely! 
 

You might not be able to attend physically, but you have all means possible to join your voice on-line and give your input to ensure youth perspectives to be heard at the GCARD2! On top of that, we invite you to join our social media team. We will have a pretty large social support team using their social media networks to spread the messages!
 

The purpose of the social media project in GCARD2012 is to give "a voice to the youth in ARD", and show how extensive social reporting can be very positive and stimulating compliment to the "official" reporting and "traditional" media.
 

We will use an internal collaborative site and an informal email discussion forum to connect the remote group.
 

Our team will:

• Use social media to spread the message and key content before, during and after the forum;
• Do the social reporting from the forum itself, using different social media outlets to distribute the updates;
• Coordinate the spreading of “the messages”, using our worldwide social media network.
   

You will be able to interact with the onsite social reporting team including 12 young trainees sponsored by the conference, coming from all regions across the globe before and during the event. This way, a core and vibrant youth voice will resonate on-the-ground and on-line for “youth in ARD” cause. 
 

A key opportunity to learn!

Our social media team is also an opportunity to learn how the new media can be used to report from a conference, and to spread messages way beyond the “social media”. As such, we will use our social media team as “a project”. You will be able to participate in putting together a social media strategy, how to select and use the tools, and even help the newbies on the different social media techniques. So, in short, we will use social media at its best and finest: train people, define the approach, and execute a social media campaign for a youth cause. This will be an excellent learning opportunity, and a way to share experiences with like-minded people, from different regions of the world.

Wanted!

You work in agriculture and you are enthusiastic about the role of (social media) communications in agriculture? Do you have a genuine interest in using social media for a non-profit cause, willing to learn from each other, and work with the others? Are you willing to help spread the message through social media for youth cause?

Sounds exciting? Ready to join? Comment on this blog post with your email address or send Peter, the social media team coordinator an email and we will include you in the team: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Please do not hesitate to ask any question for clarification!

Once we get your email address, we will include you on our Google Groups Email discussion list. You can participate in the discussions, volunteer for one of the tasks (e.g. tweeting, search for new social media tools and help setting them up, write blogposts, and help to train others.)

All of this is on a volunteering basis: you can invest as much or as little time you want. Even if you just want to “join and watch”, that is fine too!
 

This is a unique opportunity to using social media for Youth in ARD cause! Join!