Beyond Borders is a space where young people can express themselves and work on development issues they are passionate and concerned about. We are entirely youth-led, youth-run and run by a core group of volunteers.
Our three themes – Identity, Diversity and Active Global Citizenship – captures the spirit of Beyond Borders. What all this means exactly, is very personal. But for each of us in Beyond Borders it means something special and a vision for a society and world we’d like to live in. Beyond Borders provides a platform to work towards this vision and encourages other young people to come along.
We like to think of ourselves as a development-focused civil society organization, not a charity. Our focus is on social and development issues and action aimed at bringing about long-term and sustainable change.
Being a youth organization we think our strength lies in working with other young people on peer-education initiatives, promoting causes we believe in and helping other civil society actors to help create a better country and a better world, one step at a time. At the moment we are focused on issues related to peace, governance and citizenship.
Currently Beyond Borders is based in Sri Lanka with core groups in India and Bangladesh. Find out more about Beyond Borders International
Beyond Borders was initially set up by the British Council as a networking project between UK, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan from 2005 to 2007. The project consisted of core groups in different countries working on social issues based on the working themes of Identity, Diversity and Active Global Citizenship.
After the project ended, the groups in Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh decided we’d want to continue on our own and as of now functions as independent youth organizations. Beyond Borders Sri Lanka is still supported by British Council Colombo office.