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The State Department has rolled out an unprecedented focus on empowering young people to find jobs
and sources of livelihood, and to make their voices heard in their communities, either
in civil society, in government, however it may be the case. And to that end we have programs
all around the world, that foster young entrepreneurs, that provide training and mentorship, that
partner new activists in countries undergoing democratic transitions with experienced veterans
of activism and civil society leadership all around the world. These are programs that
we have successfully undertaken in some cases for years, but what's new is that we now have
structures in place to really place that as a focal point in our engagement around the
world and to encourage more, better and stronger programing of that type. That reaches out
to young people directly, to that end we have a new office focused on global youth issues
in Washington, which is what I've been honored to head up for Secretary Clinton, and all
around the world at embassies and consulates, wherever The United States flag flies we're
redoubling our efforts to bring young people to the table directly, so actually at 25 embassies
right now and that's a number that's growing rapidly, we have councils of local young people
that we're bring in to tap for guidance on our policies to tell us what we are doing
right, but also maybe what we are doing wrong or could do better and to generate grass roots
initiatives that target the goals that they feel are important, not necessarily what we
are dictating as the important things they should address. So for instance I just got
back recently from launching a council of that exact type in Nepal, where they face
a constitutional process where young people often feel disconnected from their leadership
at a critical moment in that country's history and where they are producing grass roots projects
to mobilize and get more involved politically and where I met a young man who is in his
early twenties, my own age, who saw a lack of educational opportunity in his own community
and just using a little bit of seed resourcing from that council that he's now a member of,
was able to design his own entrepreneurial solution where he built a web portal for young
people like himself to get access to more educational and job training tools. So those
are the kinds of stories we want to see all around the world because we really think if
we're going to cut through old enmities, old challenges, we're going to need new and innovative
thinking that we believe we can tap young people for.