'YPD is an international network uniting young people from different cultures and faiths who are aware and act for sustainable development. It promotes volunteer service to the community and gives youth a chance to develop themselves'.

YPD is an international network created in 2003 and based on the simple idea that young people each have a vital role to play personally and collectively in contributing to world development.

YPD began in 2003 with the first Young People for Development Exchange and Training Program held in Thailand from 7 - 25 August 2003 with nearly 60 participants from China, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma-Myanmar, Malaysia, Cambodia and France.

It was a great event which had 3 basic aims:

• To promote the launching of local teams of young people working for development in the home countries of the participants;

   

• To build a network of young people involved in development issues among the participating countries especially in the greater South East Asian region stretching from China, Vietnam, Cambodia across Thailand to Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Phillipines.

   

• To develop an ongoing plan of action and training for the members of the emerging network.

And it worked! Since then we've seen a number of YPD local teams emerging in various participating countries!

From 2004 onward a genuine YPD network began to emerge.

We believe that youth can contribute personally and collectively to world development. This is especially true in developing countries with a large youth population in the midst of rapid social, cultural and economic transformations in the context of globalisation.

The overall long term objective of YPD is to enable young people to come together at local, national, and international level to discover their role, to gain the skills and experience necessary to make their own unique contribution to development.

YPD now has contacts and members in around 15 countries mostly in Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Cambodia,Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore) and also in China, India, Bangladesh, Japan, France, England and Australia.