Voices & Viewpoints: When Youth Make News

The 14 news features compiled in this book are the result of a partnership between Inter Press Service (IPS) Asia-Pacific correspondents and young students in 7 East and South-east Asian countries. For one month, each IPS correspondent and his or her intern worked together to gather data and conduct interviews (many with children and young people), but wrote their stories separately. The project that made these partnerships possible, "Youth Making News", was a joint effort of IPS Asia-Pacific and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office.

The book is divided into 7 sections, according to the team's country. Four of the sets of stories focus on the subject of education. The titles of the interns' essays in this section are: "Academic War Waged with Sweat, Tears", "Reforms Made by Adults, Forced on Children", "How Can We Study if Our Stomachs are Empty?", and "Teachers Must Listen to Their Students". Other stories focus on the continuing effect of Agent Orange on children in Vietnam, the daily struggle faced by street children in Indonesia, and the use of illegal drugs by young people in Malaysia.