TYO Recommends: March 2, 2012

This week, TYO takes it to the city, looking at youth in urban areas around the world and efforts to combat women's unemployment as the global recession drags on.

City Kids: UNICEF releases their “2012 State of the World’s Children: Children in an Urban World” REPORT, citing and mapping urban disparities, the challenges of an urban future, children’s rights in urban settings, maternal and child health services for the urban poor, urban challenges in light of the Millennium Development goals, strategies in urban emergencies, health inequity in urban areas, the child-friendly cities initiative, upgrading settlements in Jeddah, the paucity of intra-urban data, and home-grown solutions to urban plight. Includes the unique perspective of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, a UNICEF Eminent Advocate, and statistical tables on global child mortality rates, rate of progress, and child protection, among others.

Two Lives, Two Miles, To Turkey: Backed by discoveries from their urban report, UNICEF tracks the lives of Eda and Ramazan, two seventeen-year old teens living two very different lives just two miles apart in Istanbul, Turkey. Offering a brief look at life in the city for these two teens from different sides of the track, UNICEF begins a web series tracking the two students. In episode one, the students recount how they are affected by violence in their daily lives. Video made available via Voices of Youth, a global community for young people founded by UNICEF.

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Youth Behind Bars: Human Rights Watch investigates the disturbing rate of sentences condemning youth to life without parole in California. With the US as the only country in the world where juvenile offenders (youth under the age of 18) can be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, over 2,500 YOUTH OFFENDERS are currently serving out these extensive sentences all over the country. “When California sentences a 16-year-old to die in prison,” says Elizabeth Calvin, senior children’s rights advocate at HRW, “the state ignores what science, parents, and teachers have long known: young people have tremendous potential to change, grow, and mature.” Just in time for an upcoming legislature vote on review of these sentences, HRW presents their much anticipated 28-page report: “When I Die, They’ll Send Me Home: An Update.”

Female Face of Unemployment: Though men and women the world over are currently struggling to make up for the alarming rate of joblessness in developing and developed nations, women still lag far behind their male counterparts. And not without reason according to Gender Across Borders’s recent findings on the female FACE OF UNEMPLOYMENT during the ongoing global recession. Antiquated employment schemes, unequal benefit distribution, and gendered clustering in the unregulated informal economy and public sector jobs (most rapidly losing pace over private sector jobs) have added to the dilemma, making this a near-unprecedented era of unemployment for women around the world. With evidence from the International Labor Organization, Gender Across Borders poses the question of what to do next.

Jordan Takes a Stand: As debates rage in America harkening to post-revolutionary era disputes over the scope of the federal government  in the daily lives of the average American, the Jordanian government steps in to counter joblessness for the country’s women. The World Bank sponsored pilot project” Jordan Now,” selected Jordanian women graduates at random to receive training and vouchers to pay for the first six months of any job they found on their own. At once jump-starting the work sector for women and encouraging independence and self-motivation, with an overall 39% rise in female employment and 900 successful women in the program, Jordan Now promises to be a telling test in government stimulation of sluggish global economies targeting a crucial sector of the population.

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Meet TYO's Women! : AND if you haven’t seen them already, take a PEEK at what TYO’s Women Entrepreneurs in Lebanon are up to as the top ten entrepreneurs move onto  the next round of training, business English lessons, and preparation for their entrepreneurial endeavors. A precursor to WEL, TYO interviews four women who participated in the Fostering Women Entrepreneurs  program in Nablus, Palestine:

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