Miley Cyrus discusses service and Youth Service America in TIME Magazine

As part of their Fares Fair Campaign, members the UK Youth Parliament are attempting to utilize the power of the internet to campaign about the poor state of public transport and its impact on young people. A YouTube video created by the youth will launch on November 19 and seeks to help discover many thousands of young people’s views on the issue of public transportation. To learn more, visit http://www.ukyouthparliament.org.uk/faresfair

Last week the International Youth Foundation and Nokia honored twenty global youth leaders as YouthActionNet Fellows. YouthActionNet is a program that invests in the power and promise of young people to create positive change by selecting young social entrepreneurs to participate in a Global Fellowship Program. The fellows are young leaders who have positively impacted their communities through innovative approaches in mobilizing their peers to take action. Some of the inspiring winners include:

Maritza Morales, 23, from Mexico created an interactive theme park to increase young people’s awareness of environmental issues and sustainable living. The park currently receives over 13,000 visitors a year.

Ana Moraga, 24, of Guatemala founded MuJeres por la Justicia, Educación y el Reconocimeiento (MuJER) to help women sex workers recover their dignity and self-esteem through literacy and vocational training.

Cheryl Perera, 22, of Canada oversees the OneChild Network in Ontario, Canada, an organization she founded to empower children and youth to take action against the sexual exploitation of children.

Vanja Hamzic, 28, of Bosnia-Herzegovina, is founder and president of Logos, the only organization in the Balkans that provides direct support to the LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer) community.

To read more inspiring stories of the YouthActionNet Fellows, visit http://www.youthactionnet.org/yan_awards/awardwinner.cfm

A recent, “Ripple Kid of the Month,” Brianna, age 9 of Newport Beach, CA is this week’s Everyday Young Hero. After meeting Toni from A Wish for Animals (a dog rescue organization), Brianna and her brother Caleb decided they wanted to do something to help rescue animals. The animals they chose to help were a Chihuahua named Pepe and a Black Lab mix named Sepulveda who had been inseparable ever since Pepe rescued his friend as a puppy. Brianna and Caleb decided to make Pop Art lollipops and sell them to raise money in the dog’s names. They rode their bikes around their neighborhood and raised $50 in 90 minutes. The thing that Brianna learned from doing her project is that people get excited about what you’re doing and they want to get involved.

Do you know a Ripple Kid? Visit http://www.ripplekids.com/howtobe.php to find out more.

A recent Prudential Spirit of Community honoree, Rebecca M., 16, of Southington, CT, a junior at Southington High School, has managed the back-to-school project of Southington’s Smart Start program for the past six years, providing backpacks filled with school supplies to as many as 300 underprivileged students each fall. “I love school and want every kid to love learning,” said Rebecca. So when she approached her town’s social services department in 2001 looking for a project to help her achieve the Girl Scout Silver Award, she was delighted to be given responsibility for the entire back-to-school project.

Rebecca works year-round to promote the project, solicit donations, recruit and train volunteers, purchase school supplies, and distribute backpacks filled with school supplies to kids who need them. She expands the program each year, adding new supplies such as lunch boxes, flash cards, dictionaries, calculators, and vouchers for new shoes. “I try to add a variety of items so the children actually look forward to going back to school,” said Rebecca. She is now working with a local foundation to provide scholarships to graduating high school students.

Berni (15) and Marni (16) are teenage sisters who founded an organization called Kid Flicks five years ago. They solicit and collect new and used DVDs to donate to Children's Hospitals and Pediatric Departments across the United States. To date, they have donated 23,300 movies to 230 different hospitals in all 50 states. Each hospital receives a "movie library" of 100 assorted films that appeal to toddlers through teenagers.

They came up with the idea for Kid Flicks in 2002 when they realized they had a lot of movies they had either outgrown or no longer watched. A friend of theirs had been treated for Leukemia and they knew she watched movies when she was in the hospital to distract her and pass the time. They took their old movies to the hospital where their friend had been treated and when they got there, the Child Life Specialist told them, "movies are the first thing kids ask for when they are in the hospital." That day, they decided to collect as many movies as possible to donate to as many hospitals as possible. They wrote solicitation letters to family and friends and they organized movie collection drives at their schools and through their pediatrician's office. They also contacted movie studios and production companies. Movie donations came pouring in and have been continuing to do so for the past five years. Hardly a week goes by that they don't receive movie donations. Th eir goal is to provide every Children's Hospital and Pediatric Department in the country with a Kid Flicks "movie library."