NATIONAL YOUTH SERVICE

This site contains information on National Youth Service,

National Youth Service is increasingly taking a place alongside education and work as an activity for young people that is constructive in itself and is an investment in the future. Countries adopt programs of National Youth Service for varied reasons, including:

To perform needed services, ranging from literacy and child care to health and environmental conservation,
To help overcome divisions in a multiethnic country,
To increase the fairness of a system of military conscription,
To counter a lack of experiential education, and
To reduce high levels of youth unemployment and provide training to young people.

National Youth Service (NYS) is known by different names in different countries. It is Zivildienst in Germany, AmeriCorps in the United States, Trabajo Comunal Universitario in Costa Rica, and National Youth Service Corps in Nigeria.

This site contains information on several sources of information on National Youth Service. The most recent is Service Without Guns, published in February of 2006. It is written by Donald J. Eberly and Reuven Gal with a guest chapter by Michael Sherraden. It can be ordered directly from the Internet here, where it is available as a download for $US5.00 or as a printed book for $US13.70 plus postage (softcover), or $US25.00 plus postage (hardcover) For a May 2006 review of Service Without Guns, visit the review.

Excerpts from the Introduction to Service Without Guns appear here (66k).

Chapter headings and lead paragraphs for Service Without Guns appear here (74k).

Names of service programs that are discussed in Service Without Guns appear here.

This site contains three booklets on NYS that have been published in recent years. The first is National Service: An Action Agenda for the 1990s. (80k) It was published in 1988 and describes where national service stood in the United States in 1988 and sets out an agenda for the coming decade. With the introduction of AmeriCorps in 1993, a significant portion of the agenda has been accomplished.

The second is National Youth Service : A Democratic Institution for the 21st Century (180k) . It was published in 1991 and contains two major parts. The first is an analysis by Prof. Michael Sherraden of youth participation in American society over the past two centuries. It shows that most young people were constructively engaged in activities such as work and schooling until about three decades ago, when negative indicators such as youth crime and drug abuse began to rise sharply. The second is a paper by Donald J. Eberly and James C. Kielsmeier setting forth a plan for NYS to evolve into a societal institution. It shows how NYS would relate to such current activities as formal education, federal and local governments, and the private sector.

The third is National Youth Service : A Global Perspective (135k). It was published in 1992 and describes the status of NYS in 13 countries. It also reports on a conference of national service leaders from these countries, showing a developing consensus on major national service issues, e.g., civilian service in relationship to military service, the distinction between youth service and employment, and the educational potential of NYS.

Following the 1992 conference, Global Conferences have been held in Nigeria in 1994, in Papua New Guinea in 1996, in the United Kingdom in 1998, in Israel in 2000, and in Argentina in 2002. The reports on these conferences, together with an extensive bibliography on National Youth Service, are at http://www.acys.utas.edu.au/ianys/

The International Association for National Youth Service was formed at the 1996 Global Conference. For information on the Association, contact Donald J. Eberly, Honorary President, at national_service@compuserve.com

For information on NYS in Spanish, with particular focus on the service-learning dimension of NYS, go to clayss

For additional information on NYS with a focus on NYS research,
go to Global Service Institute