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Youth Advocacy Network

Young people setting the agenda

Your generation sets the agenda. Our members carry it forward.

The Youth Advocacy Network puts students and recent graduates in the US at the center of Citizens for Global Solutions’ advocacy. You work with other young people to research the global issues that will shape your future, write the policy briefs, and decide what we ask of decision-makers.

Then CGS members across the country take your asks to their elected officials. It is an intergenerational approach: young people shape the message our organization sends, and our members, many of them advocates for decades, help deliver it.

True progress is a generational enterprise.

Four Youth Advocacy Network members seated at a curved conference table in a wood-panelled room at the United Nations
Youth Advocacy Network members at the United Nations in New York.

How it works

  1. Join a working groupEach thematic working group brings together students and recent graduates around one global issue.
  2. Follow the issueMonitor developments, keep a situation analysis up to date, and coordinate with the international campaigns and initiatives CGS partners with.
  3. Set the asksWrite policy briefs for CGS members that set the priorities and spell out exactly what to ask of elected officials.
  4. Equip our membersPrepare guidance notes and run training sessions so members can make the case with confidence.
  5. Take it to decision-makersCGS members carry your asks to elected officials across the country, and you join the advocacy yourself, from Capitol Hill meetings to UN conferences.

The issues we work on

Working groups form around the global issues at the heart of CGS’s mission, and new groups open as the network grows.

  • Strengthening the United Nations
  • Human rights and the prevention of atrocity crimes
  • Peacebuilding and reducing the risk of nuclear weapons
  • The climate crisis and the sustainable governance of our planet

What you will do

Network members gain real experience in policy and advocacy, alongside peers who care about the same issues.

  • Work with the international campaigns and initiatives CGS partners with
  • Track developments and write situation analyses
  • Prepare policy briefings for CGS members
  • Write guidance notes and lead training sessions
  • Attend UN conferences on your issue
  • Take part in advocacy to elected officials
  • Plan advocacy and awareness campaigns with World Citizen Clubs on campuses and in local communities
Five young CGS advocates stand in front of the Non-Violence knotted gun sculpture at UN Headquarters
At UN Headquarters, beside the Non-Violence sculpture.
Anastasia Tomlinson and Samara Husain in front of the UN flag at United Nations Headquarters in New York
CGS youth delegates at the UN High-Level Political Forum.

Read how CGS youth took their research to the UN High-Level Political Forum

Join a World Citizen Club?

The network works hand in hand with World Citizen Clubs, our student-led groups that turn global concerns into action on campus and in local communities.

Explore World Citizen Clubs

Join the Youth Advocacy Network

Open to students and recent graduates in the US. Send us a note and the YAN team will reply with how to get involved.

Join the Youth Advocacy Network