Franziska Seel
Franziska has many years of experience working in the youth sector. From 2007 to 2009, Franziska headed up the Global Youth Action Network (GYAN), a New York City based non-for-profit organization... read more Franziska has many years of experience working in the youth sector. From 2007 to 2009, Franziska headed up the Global Youth Action Network (GYAN), a New York City based non-for-profit organization that supports collaboration among diverse youth organizations worldwide and provides tools, resources, and recognition for positive youth action. She also served as Associate Director of TakingITGlobal (TIG), which runs the world’s premier online community for globally conscious youth leaders who are actively involved in creating positive social change. TIG and GYAN share a similar vision of connecting, empowering and supporting young people, and during her time with these two organizations, Franziska lead the process of forming a strategic alliance between them, which will elevate the impact of their work for years to come. Today, GYAN is fully integrated with TIG and is seen as its core program focusing on the needs of organizations and giving young people a voice in global decision making processes, particularly at the UN. Even before joining TIG and GYAN, Franziska had already been a part of the youth movement for over 10 years. As a national of Germany, she was very involved in school politics during her years in high school, serving for two years as the president of her regional student council. She was also a board member of the German Chess Organization for 2 years, and part of the youth committee of the German Youth Sports Organization, the biggest youth organization in the country with over 9 million members. In 2001, Franziska was appointed delegate of the German National Youth Council to the 4th UN World Youth Forum in Dakar, Senegal. At the conference, she was introduced for the first time to the work of global youth organizations such as GYAN, TIG and the Youth Employment Summit campaign. In the years following the Youth Forum, she became involved with a number of projects and organizations: she undertook research on youth and peace as part of the IPRA Youth Commission, served as project coordinator for the Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) in Germany, coordinated the German National Information Society Youth Campaign, and was an active member of the Youth Caucus to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). In 2005, Franziska worked for TakingITGlobal at their headquarters in Toronto as the organizations’ MDG Program Manager, responsible for implementing a partnership with the United Nations Millennium Campaign and leading a team of regional youth editors around the word along with coordinating TakingITGlobal’s MDG portal http://mdg.takingitglobal.org. Following this work she was a consultant to the United Nations Millennium Campaign and a member of the GCAP Children and Youth Task Force Steering Committee. She also supported Toronto-based consultancy D-Code in conducting research commissioned by the World Association of Newspapers on youth media consumption in 10 countries around the world. Franziska holds an M.A. in Sociology, Political Science and Chinese Studies. Her master thesis focused on analyzing the causes of youth unemployment in OECD countries. “I strongly believe that youth have a lot to contribute to their societies, and I envision a world where young people are no longer seen as a burden on society, but as a group of dynamic, creative, entrepreneurial and motivated individuals that can contribute to the economic and social development of their countries and communities. Moreover, I envision a world where young people are participating in all decisions that concern their lives – be it at a very local level, such as in their school or family, or on a global level where policies are made for and about them. I dream of a world, that listens to the voices of young people and takes them seriously.”
Visit Franziska Seel's TIG Profile