Kirana Bammarito is PAI's Communications Intern. She is a recent graduate of American University.

August 12 will mark the tenth International Youth Day as commemorated by the United Nations. In the United States, youth triumphs and tragedies alike have occurred during the past year. November saw the exciting, social-media-driven election of President Barack Obama with July revealing the dismaying, but not surprising, report that declining teen pregnancy and STI rates either stalled or reversed during the Bush years. Rates in the South, where authorities tout abstinence and religion as perfect sex education, are of course, the highest.

Kame Westerman is PAI's Climate Change Intern. She is a current graduate student in Sustainable Development & Conservation Biology at the University of Maryland.

As an environment volunteer with the Peace Corps, I was given the task of visiting outlying villages and promoting sustainable agricultural techniques - the hope being that with increased agricultural efficiency and sustainability, there would be less need to harvest from the surrounding forests.  Yet as I quickly came to understand, sustainable agricultural techniques are a moot point if the regions' unsustainable fertility rate of just over five children per woman continues.

Gabrielle Stopper, Resource Development Intern. She is a recent graduate of George Washington University.

Today marks World Youth Day and a time to celebrate the promise that comes with new generations.  Youth bring new ideas, new understanding, and new methods to achieve what was once thought impossible.  Walking around Washington DC during the summer, the streets swarming with interns, it is clear how truly exciting the future will be.  As a woman in my twenties, having attended college in DC, I have been privileged to watch and become part of the reproductive health movement, though this unique city was not what led me there.   My own youthful drive and need to question during high school fueled my first exposure to the field.