YMCA Youth and Government - Overview

Overview

Most of the 38 Youth and Government Programs are built around an annual Model Youth Legislature composed of high school Youth Senators and Representatives that meet in the legislative chambers of the state capitol to debate bills written and sponsored by the students during the program year. Most state programs have expanded the youth legislature into a full-scale 3-5 day State Assembly or Conference, operating a complete model government that offers student delegates the opportunity to serve as members of the Executive Branch, Judicial Branch, Press Corps and Media, and Lobbyist Firms and many other program areas. In addition to programming offered to high school students, several Youth and Government programs have established similar types of programming for middle school students by running additional Youth Legislatures/MUN Conferences and State Assemblies, incorporating middle school delegates and events into existing high school programming, or in some cases doing both.

There is no “National” Youth and Government program or organization due to the local and state-based structure and affiliations of most YMCA programs, but there are two national events attended by most of state Youth and Government programs: The annual YMCA Youth Governor’s Conference in Washington, D.C., held in June, and the annual YMCA Youth Conference on National Affairs, or CONA, held the first week in July. The Youth Governor’s Conference, established in 1949, serves as a weeklong national servant leadership training session for all students elected to serve as Governor (or in some cases Chief Justice or Secretary General) of their state programs. The YMCA Youth Conference on National Affairs (CONA), established in 1968 under the leadership of the Alabama Youth In Government program, is held every July in Black Mountain, North Carolina at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly. CONA brings together nearly 600 delegates selected as members of 25-30 person delegations from most of the state Y&G programs. Each delegate authors and sponsors a proposal on national and international policy issues, and the proposals are debated during the conference through a 5-stage committee process

Each of the State Programs are listed and then subdivided into their respective Model United Nations explanation and their Model Assembly program explanation. Those Programs with no website or contact information given have no explanations.