 August
12 is International
Youth Day. NIFA
is celebrating by highlighting the accomplishments of 4-H, an American program
that provides positive youth development by promoting citizenship, healthy
living, science education, leadership skills, and more.
As
the premiere youth outreach program administered by USDA’s National Institute
of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), 4-H draws upon its deep experience to help
other nations create similar youth development programs. NIFA has administered
4-H for more than a century in close collaboration with the Cooperative
Extension Systems of the
nation’s land-grant
universities.
Worldwide,
there are more than seven million youth in at least 80 countries who are
involved in similar, 4-H-inspired youth development programming. Some of
these programs across the globe include the Finnish 4-H program, which is more
than 90 years old, and the Korea 4-H
program, more
than 75 years old.
Building
on a 40-year Partners of the Americas
relationship,
Kansas State University’s (K-State) Extension 4-H program is revitalizing a
relationship with the Paraguay 4-H
program.
“We like to see kids learning
that they need to give back to the community in community service projects,”
said Deryl Waldren, 4-H specialist for K-State Research and Extension’s northwest
area, in Colby, Kansas. “The best way is to look at local needs and develop a
plan or a project that will give back to the community what that community
needs. Obviously, 4-H around the world is based on local needs, but there are
certain things we hope 4-H is teaching, which is life skills through these and
other projects,” he added.
Youth
development can take any number of paths to grow abroad, including land-grant
university staff who mentor other countries as they develop their own programs
modeled after 4-H. In Senegal, youth grow vegetable seedlings and organize money-raising traditional Senegalese
wrestling events in a positive youth development
program modeled after Virginia Cooperative Extension's 4-H program.
NIFA also routinely provides youth development
expertise to USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, the U.S. Department of State, and USAID as they conduct work in
other countries.
In addition, States’ 4-H International Exchange Programs, a non-profit
organization headquartered in Seattle, Washington, sponsors international
exchange programs for cultural immersion and exchange programs. These exchanges
create opportunities for 4-H’ers to gain global experience in leadership,
service, and project work. Since 1972, these exchanges have reached nearly
50,000 youth and their families in 24 countries on 6 continents.
Visit
the NIFA website for more NIFA impacts or
the Land-Grant University Impacts website. Send us your
NIFA-funded impacts or share them with USDA_NIFA on
Twitter #NIFAimpacts.
NIFA invests in and advances agricultural research, education and extension and seeks to make transformative discoveries that solve societal challenges.
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