If You Are New...[Guide to FYP]

If you're new to our organization, then here are a few things you can do to get started:
- familiarize yourself with the wiki. Check out our resources, the different pages people have added, and see if we're missing something that you think should be included.
- If you decide you'd like to contribute, go ahead and make an account in the top right corner.
- Creating/editing a page is simple and takes just a few minutes. Please don't delete things that other people have added, and be reasonable with your contributions.

FYP One Year Note

Yesterday there was a significant student employee labor strike at University of Washington organized by our union. As I walked past the picket lines and demonstrations, seeing young people holding their heads and signs high under the bright blue sky of Seattle, I felt so inspired. This scene exactly embodies the spirit we hoped to ignite when we started ForYouPage (FYP). “If we can elevate our agency and get young people across the country to go out to act for what we each believe in, we can end systemic injustices and structural oppression across gender, race, wealth, sexuality, beliefs, and everything” I texted my friends.

Coincidentally, today marks the one year anniversary of FYP’s formation. It all started with a rainy afternoon in the deep Appalachians of Virginia (US) while my college friends and I were getting dinner and boba and joking about how no one uses our school’s counseling services. At one point, staring at a friend who stealthily couch-potatoed into tiktoking, I jokingly said: “mental health is so bad that all we do now is TikTok, get high, and get through the week.”         One of my bestie responded “well good for you cuz I’m just trying to get through the day.” My other best friend, sitting on the end of our rusty dog-and-cat-hair-covered $30 couch that my sister and I picked up from Goodwill, holding her Valdomore-colored Baja Blast, immediately started laughing. 

She didn’t laugh because it was funny; she laughed because it was so true. And that’s the moment I decided to do something, now. Naturally I dragged my friends with me. Three hours later, the first version of ForYouPage white paper was drafted and our website launched. Within a week, our initial team was formed and our ultimate goal set: to get youth to take risks and exercise agency through advocacy—the key to our flourishing.

What followed was nothing short of exhilarating miracles and heartmelting comradeship. In two weeks we met our dear friends from Japan and Colorado (US)—youth who we had never met before  clicked instantly and started working together. In three weeks we launched FYP Wiki, an free open alternative to Wikipedia. While Wikipedia provides a place for shared human knowledge, FYP Wiki provides a medium of shared human passion-a place where community advocates can put together local resources, knowledge, perhaps most importantly, community action to-dos. FYP wiki is a fight with the machines and fundemental techno-solutionism—use information to bring out our humanness instead of scrumbling our humanness to information. Wikipedia facilitates information; we foster connection—by providing a reason for increasingly lonely and seemingly purposeless youth everywhere to gather & work together. 

In two months we met our phenomenal mentor at Mental Health America. With their marvelous support, Two months later, at Bohemian National Hall in New York City, we made UN Conference happened with 60 representatives from more than 15 major mental health groups in the US and youth leaders from all over the country—Michigan, Colorado, Missouri, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California, DC…A collective of ten youth leaders showcased to the world our efforts to address the mental health crisis. On that day Sept 15th 2023, we proudly proclaimed to the world and to ourselves what youth are and always capable of.

Today, FYP has gathered more than 500 youth dreams & projects across 90 countries and 2000 active advocates in our communities and networks. Our young associates, friends, and partners are working as globally as persuading and advising Prime Ministers of powerful countries and leaders of United Nations, and advocating as locally as building community gardens, fighting regional troubled teen facilities, and helping friends disconnect from social media. All of these accomplishments are driven by a broke but faithful youth team running almost exclusively on volunteers. Our faith is the kindness of the people. One of our earliest team members, who once battles with mental health, started a communal food truck with nothing but one like-minded coworker and are now serving 150 meals to the low income communities of New River Valley every Tuesday without a fail. 

Tomorrow, FYP will venturing out further, organizing the next fully youth-led gathering at UNGA79, expanding our Wiki & community infrastructure with more resources to help youth connect and serve, and, thanks to our committed friends & passionate partners in California, taking charge in becoming part of a larger effort in shaping youth-centric workforce development, higher edu reform, and social entrepreneurship advancement in the era of AI future. All these achievements are thanks to the loving individuals and stakeholders who staunchly want to do something for us. ForYouPage started with youth and by youth but has never been just about the youth. FYP would never have been possible without the sounding support of our parents, mentors, and those who have dedicated their lives and time to our happiness and the happiness of future generations. We may not say it often enough, but we love you all so very much.

What is FYP? It is a network hub where youth leaders, youth centric nonprofits, and stakeholders intersect with everyday youth who long to step out and step up. It is a youth group made of a bunch of 20-year-olds, some of whom took 4 hours just to book ‘scary’ airline tickets. It is a free version Slack, a half abandoned Discord, an expansive [rly overpriced] wix site, and an open source wiki tool running on crappy personal server and gpt-generated css codes. You may notice there are no mention of any individual’s name in this writing. That is because, as much as I strongly wish to give shoutouts to our fantastic friends and mentors who made it all possible, FYP, at its core, is just an idea—the idea that we youth have agency to ourselves and can act for something good for others, for you; the idea that though we could drifted to the depths of low zone of anxiety depression to the extent of global mental health crisis, we could also dance up to the top of high zone challenging international landscape changing national policies disrupting the status quo and annoying the crap out of power-holders. These are all part of us and , no matter which parts you are in right now, it will all be okay. FYP is an idea of agency and compassion, owned by no one, and by everyone. 

We have a simple vision for FYP—we envision a world where one day all the tiktok Instagram YouTube short social media content with #fyp can be just a bit different—not just content of entertainment and unrealistic influencers and fifity shades of negativity but content of genuine advocating youth, artfacts and evidence of hope, agency and compassion. 

I want to personally say thank you to all the youth leaders, mentors, friends. I’m proud and honored to meet and work alongside with each one of you. ForYouPage is not a miracle. You are. Thank you for all you do. 

Marx 
05/15/2024, Seattle, with mint tea

What is ForYouPage.Org

What is FYP

ForYouPage (FYP) is a fully youth led close knit community, a network/resource hub, a safe space that embodies the idea of agency and compassion, connecting youth leaders, youth-centric nonprofits, and stakeholders with everyday youth who aspire to step out and do something for our community, our world.

Vision:

We have a simple vision-a world where social media with #fyp can be just a bit different—not just content of entertainment and unrealistic influencers and fifty shades of negativity but content of genuine risk-taking advocating youth, artifacts and evidence of hope, agency and compassion

Theory of Change

We believe that by mobilizing grassroots youth advocacy and empowering risk-taking, we can rebuild the agency and compassion disrupted by technology, thereby addressing the mental health crisis and paving the way for individual and collective flourishing in the face of today's challenges.

Core Value

Agency, Compassion, Togetherness, Authenticity, Humor 

Core Offerings

FYP Wiki: a free, open alternative to Wikipedia & Technology that provides a medium for shared human passion, enabling community advocates to collaboratively compile local resources, knowledge, and community action plans, fostering connection and get alienated & lonely youth to work together towards a common purpose

FYP Summit: The FYP Summit is an annual fully youth-led gathering that highlights the pinnacle of youth agency, compassion, and collective, and reverses power dynamic -brings together youth advocates & stakeholders to fundamentally take the conversation in addressing the mental health crisis and drive change in the global mental health & advocacy landscape.

FYP Community: FYP Discord (for everybody): https://discord.gg/fvV2h4JNVt, FYP Slack for internal teams, close collaborators, high profile/privacy preferred advocates) [invite only]

Home

Start the wiki from here: Books

Welcome to the Wiki.ForYouPage.Org: your source for youth advocacy on the web.

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Get Involved

If you want to help contribute to ForYouPage Wiki, then you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to learn how. 

You have just taken your first step toward getting involved. Before you get started, we ask that you please observe the ForYouPage.org and FYP Code of Conduct. It’s not very long and it will help you get started.

Once that’s done, check out the step-by-step instruction on how to use the wiki. 

Teams

The Teams page showcases the diverse and passionate individuals, their works, and their stories. 

You can find information about who we are, what we do, and how to contact us. Using these pages, teammates are able to communicate and coordinate projects.

Governance and Membership

We strive to be decentralized but we believe basic rules are still needed. Like most communities, we have our rules and governing body.

Anyone can join and participate in most, if not all, of our Teams and Projects. But if you want an “@foryoupage.org” e-mail address, it has to be earned. Find out how in our Membership documentation.

FYP 5 Values & 4 Principles

FYP 5 Core Values

Agency

FYP aims to fiercely highlight our agency and elevate the agency of all youth. With this goal in mind, we ensure the organizing committee has complete autonomy in decision-making. The base funding for the entire event is pre-secured with no strings attached for complete freedom.

 

Further, we take a radical stance on capitalism and believe that money, the very element that brings accountability, also diminishes agency and intention. As such, all associate and direct builders of of FYP will not be compensated. We will make every attempt to secure further funding, with the first priority being scholarship awards not rewards for all participating youth, but this is not guaranteed in practice and, more importantly, not guaranteed by principle. However, we do recognize how broke we all are, so paid positions are available on request.

Compassion, 

Everything fyp does is about the people, people, people. We believe that all people are fundamentally kind and that compassion is the element that truly bonds people together and the bridge that can help us overcome differences in interests, beliefs, identities, and groups. We ask that all that associate with FYP practice compassionate nonviolent communication with everyone we interact with, our family, our friends, our colleagues, and our “foes”. More detailed guides here.

Togetherness, 

Needless to say. No one needs to be and should feel alone. Within the personal boundary, FYP aims to foster togetherness. We are all in this together. 

Authenticity, 

FYP is a social project aim to be a high-fidelity reflection of what we, as youth, want and can make happen by ourselves. If, for instance, without the pressure of accountability from compensation, we can only organize a small event, then we believe that is a true reflection of our current state. If the genuine state of youth today involves depression, feeling lost, and getting drunk or high or doom scroll every day, we bravely embrace and showcase that reality. FYP believes that to empower is to confront—the first step in solving any problem is to admit that there is one. FYP is a safe space that doesn't suppress but aims to unleash.

Humor & Fun

Humor is the bridge that brings all of these principles together.  Humor shows vulnerability. Jokes tell things real. Most importantly, we are a bunch of 20 year olds, and the whole point of this is to have fun and PARTYY🍻YY.


FYP 4 Principles

Principle 1: Take risks. FYP's reach extends as far as prime ministers and billionaires, not because we possess world-altering genius, but because youth in our community have the audacity to imagine and the courage to reach out. Be bold, dream big, and fearlessly reach out to make our voices heard.

Principle 2: Be critical. As Plato said, "The unexamined life is not worth living," and at FYP, we encourage you to critically examine everything we do as a community, every aspect of our work, and the actions of everyone involved and associated. FYP is one of the largest recognized youth community. Each one of the youth associates are leaders of the field and community and the conversation we are creating today have a significant impact tomorrow on all youth. we encourage you to critically reflect & examine everything.

Principle 3: Emphasize grassroots and underserved communities. FYP believes there is no point doing anything if it doesn’t actually help the people, the struggling youth, the vulnerable. We committed to amplifying the voices of those who are often overlooked or marginalized

Principle 4: Take care of yourself. It would be pretty funny if a mental health advocate developed mental health issues from building work on mental health, so of all, the biggest priority is your own well being. And the first to-do is to make yourself happy. And then do the event and remember to prioritize self-care, set boundaries , and reach out for support when needed.

Wiki To-Dos

Case Study

Check out our case study book here.

We do "case studies" on various organizations, groups, and social media accounts in an effort to better understand the environment that operate in as an NGO, and to better understand the digital environment that we exist within. We examine other organizations that are pursuing similar goals, and social media accounts that we aim to emulate in terms of engagement and content. If you'd like to help with this process, all you have to do is make an account to start creating and editing pages. 

What we need help with: