About PRESS

PRESS - Save the Children Youth Norway is a non-profit and non-governmental organisation for youth between the age of 13 and 25. Through political action PRESS draws attention to the rights of the child, and the reasons why these are violated. We wish to raise awareness of the role of youth in society and at the same time put pressure on governmental bodies and other actors to reduce their violations of the rights of the child.

Activities

PRESS has many methods of working politically. We arrange nationwide campaigns with our local groups, we demonstrate, arrange stands, send letters to newspapers, we participate in relevant meetings, and at national and international conferences. We arrange seminars for local groups and a summer camp every year. We make brochures, flyers, posters, stickers and resource-booklets for all campaigns and prioritised political focus areas. Our objective is to spread this information material as wide as possible to offer knowledge to people. The central board is responsible for this production, and also their role here is to support and arrange local activities. PRESS also encourage local groups to start self-initiated activities.

Lobbying

We use lobbying as a mean of having more direct contact with politicians. We send out letters and e-mails to inform politicians and relevant parliament groups of our view in political issues. The aim is always to influence the authorities so that children’s rights are fulfilled. We hand over signatures from campaigns to ministers and other national politicians, and try to follow up activity in the parliament on those political issues that are of concern for PRESS. We also cooperate with other organisations in some cases on mutual campaigns to achieve higher ratings, and to increase media coverage.

Information and media

We send out press releases with statements from PRESS to inform media about coming activities, which we seek media’s attention on. Furthermore, we send out letters to newspapers and write articles. We also have a website that we use as actively as possible. We publish news, information for local groups, general information on PRESS-politics and activities, and contact information. In addition we have a members magazine, Larm, which we distribute broadly 4 times a year. Our distribution-lists are targeted towards youth and other volunteer organisations. However, we try to keep the contents of the magazine as wide and varied to fit into a wide range of readers.

Local groups

PRESS consists of app. 1300 members from all over the country. In addition we offer supporting memberships for those outside our age group. Most of the members are organised in local groups spread throughout the country, but this is optional. The local groups usually consists of a leader, a secretary and someone in charge of the finances, but how the group choose to organise themselves is decided individually by each group. We have app. 20 local groups. Some have relatively high numbers of members, some have frequent activity and participates in many campaigns, and others are small and chose to work with only selected parts of PRESS’ politics and campaigns.

The annual meeting

The annual meeting is the highest executive organ within PRESS, where all political documents (our platform), strategy paper and operational plan are voted on. The meeting lasts for 3 days and representatives from local groups all over the country together with the national and central board mould PRESS’ policies and objectives. The annual meeting elects president, vice-president, regional representatives for the national board, and members for the central board.


National and central board
The organisation is organised on a national level, with a national board with regional representatives. There are 10 members of this board, and they meet 6- 10 times a year. The national board is the highest level of decision between every annual meeting.

Further, we have a central board, consisting of 9 persons. The central board is responsible for the everyday activities within PRESS, and is therefore the ones you’ll meet at PRESS’ office. The members of the central board have defined political and organisational areas of responsibility. Meetings are held once a week. The president and vice-president of PRESS are president and vice-president of both of these boards.

Documents

The political platform is the document that contains all of PRESS policy. Here one can find PRESS’ views and statements. The platform may be edited every annual meeting, as long as the majority votes for a change.

The strategy paper is a relatively small and general document, which is written every fourth year, on general objectives PRESS is working towards. These are both organisational and political.

The operational plan is a more specific plan, where the annual meeting of PRESS decides what focus PRESS should have for the next year. This means that the annual meeting decides which political areas we mainly want to work on. It is more or less a written priority on PRESS activity for the next year, so in addition to the political focus areas, it contains organisational objectives as well.