>1) Youth Development & Leadership
>2) Community Building
>3) Environment & Urban Living
>4) Civic Participation
>5) Education/Research
>
>Pick 1 or 2 areas and
>find good links/resources and ideas
>for each.

I dont know if i understood these different areas that good, but that shouldn't be the worst crisis ever ;)

1- Community Building/Civic participation:
"Senter mot etnisk diskriminering"
http://www.smed.no/en.asp

A well known norwegian organization, who are not afraid to step into the media spotlight. In english their name is "Centre for Combating Ethnic Discrimination".

2- Youth Development and Leadership
"Operasjon Dagsverk"/"Operation Daywork"
http://www.od.no/
English: http://www.od.no/?pid=1&sid=2

Their own description of their organization:
"Every year 120 000 Norwegian students give a day´s work for the benefit of education in the South. This day students are hired for all sorts of possible and impossible jobs. Some rake leaves, work at a factory, clean offices or work at home. Other sing, play music, arrange an international café or baby-sit. What all participants have in common is that the money they earn is used in a country in the South to secure education for young people"

All norwegian students throughout the country who are at the level similar to USA's highschool has to do this. And the OD is very well run! When i was doing the OD my school it was dedicated to a whole week, where we spent every day at studying and discussing the cause which the money goes to that year.

The year i remember best was when the money went to a center in Tanzania, started by volunteering women. They offered support, a bed and warm food for young women in Daar es Salaam(sp), and also fought actively against AIDS (giving out condoms). One of the girls who was "adopted" from the streets by the organization actually came to my school, she travelled from Daar es shalaam(sp?) to norway... that left a big impact in me. She was my age and told her story. Her parents had died and had to travel to her aunt to live with her. The aunt had sold her to a café, where she worked as a prostitute from the age of 13, and was only given some food and a bed. One day she ran away, and was lucky to find the centre (she was one of the first they helped). I dont think the OD could have been organized better.. We could choose groups to participate in: Discussion (ala Activism, they had to produce a letter), Tanzanian dance (they performed at the final night, and the money went to the project), Movie (i joined this one, we made a very low-cost movie, and it was shown on the final night), Food (cooking tanzanian food and selling it) and Arts (the work they produced was sold). The whole school participated, even the teachers joined the different groups, and also everybody met every morning to sing together. They had a musician from Tanzania who works for the Centre to promote African culture in Oslo, to lead the singing.... So everybody also sang Tanzanian songs at the final night.

(What left a very big impact was also the fact that only 3 from my class went to hear the girl who was our age tell her story and talk about the work she did! 3 out of 20-something in my class! My friend, my brother and me. The others played football and cracked jokes about her saying she was a ho' and some said she was crippeled (she was not)! That shook me up)

I know there has been attempts to start an OD in USA as well, but it hasn't been a success.

I miss OD, really.

These two were just from little norway alone, I'm sure there are many to pick in USA and other countries