Generation X?  Generation Y?  Generation Why? . . . .Generation Try!

Many of you have asked me what I mean when I call this generation "Generation Try."

I have to give you a little background taken from our social history. Back in the 70s, social historians used the term Generation X to describe a generation of  young people who were disillusioned with just about everything in life, lacked respect for any kind of authority, and lacked the spirit to do much of social consequence. Here began the age of the consumer. The attitude of Generation X is summed in its typical music: punk rock.

Generation X was naturally followed by Generation Y a generation that began to see the impact that Generation X had on its world, society, culture, and environment. They began to question why promises made after World War Two were not being fulfilled, why global and social inequality was increasing, and why individual economic growth outstripped the promises made in the 1960s by governments. So Oxfam developed the term Generation Why in a pressure campaign aimed at raising awareness of global issues. Pressure groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) do an amazing job of bringing injustice to the forefront of the media and to the eye of the consumer, but they often fail to educate and offer real solutions and positive action that can and will lead to policy changes and consumer shifts.

“Jmuners are Generation Try!” This slogan was created because JMUN is a simulation aimed at educating young people to try and find solutions in the diplomatic arena offered by the framework of the United Nations, solutions that could change the direction that current global development is heading.

I leave you with this thought. “Become part of the solution and not part of the problem”

--Natalie Jeffers