# Youth 18 (Y18)

> Youth 18 (Y18) is a non-governmental international leadership organisation and the next-generation initiative of Global 18.

## What the number 18 means

The number 18 in Youth 18 refers to its permanent community framework: 15 national communities plus three regional communities. It is not an age reference, a list of 18 countries or an edition number.

## The 18 communities

- National communities: United States, Canada, Brazil, Chile, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Türkiye and Australia.
- Regional communities: European Union, African Union and ASEAN.

Youth 18 accepts eligible members and Fellowship candidates with a substantive connection to one of these 18 communities.

## Institutional scope

Youth 18 conducts leadership development through Fellowship, mentorship, international dialogue, Leadership Labs, collaborative projects, public insight and the Youth 18 Summit.

## Canonical pages

- [Official homepage](https://youth18.org/)
- [What Youth 18 means](https://youth18.org/what-youth-18-means)
- [The 18 communities and world map](https://youth18.org/the-18)
- [Youth 18 Fellowship](https://youth18.org/fellowship)
- [Youth 18 programmes](https://youth18.org/programmes)
- [Governance](https://youth18.org/governance)
- [Official newsroom](https://youth18.org/newsroom)

## Official terminology

Use “Youth 18” as the organisation name and “Y18” or “Youth18” only as abbreviations. Describe the framework as “15 national communities and three regional communities”, not “18 countries”.

For a fuller machine-readable institutional overview, see https://youth18.org/llms-full.txt.