I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the state of our world lately. I don’t have cable, yet I still find it difficult to go through an entire day without being ambushed by some horrible image or headline telling yet another dark story. The past weeks bizarre trend of school shootings has especially hit close to home, since I just gave birth to a little boy not six weeks ago. I can’t help but wonder what kind of world he will be living in when he becomes a teenager and whether there is something I can do now to try and combat the many dangers he will have to face.

I think the answer lies in youth activism. I have been inspired many times over with stories of how teens have banded together to fight for a common cause and I believe libraries are a perfect resource to help foster such enthusiasm for activism in their teen communities. It is, after all, during our adolescents that we begin to form our own opinions and if there is one thing libraries do best, it’s provide resources to help people think for themselves.

Activism also happens to be part of the message of this years Teen Read Week. Get Active@ your library is by far one of the best messages ever chosen by YALSA, since it encompasses such a broad range of topics. There is definitely no excuse this year for a library not to be promoting something during Teen Read Week.

YALSA has a great list of ideas for helping teens get active politically and philanthropically on their website. However, I think it’s also important to ask teens what it is they want to become active about, rather than just create a program around a chosen issue. This way they will actually feel as though they are involved in the process as opposed to just being guided by an adult. Ideally, it would be great to invite teens to a general meeting where ideas can be hashed out and a cause chosen. Lisa Cole, Youth Services Librarian at Koelbel Library in Colorado did this with a group of teens this past summer. After raising a chunk of money with a Read-a-thon the teens decided they wanted to donate books and supplies to children in Iraq, which they initially did through an agency known as Operation Iraqi Children.

If teens are looking to become active on a more global scale, then there is a really neat social networking website called Taking It Global, an “online community that connects youth to find inspiration, access information, get involved, and take action in their local and global communities”. Here, teens can participate on forums, express their thoughts on global activism and become involved with various projects. They have also recently launched a Virtual Classroom for teachers which librarians may also find useful.

Below are a few other websites for promoting during Teen Read Week:

What Kids Can Do

Youth Activism Project

BAMboozled

Action without Borders Kids&Teens