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Hi Marian, thanks for looking for ways to involve youth in community action.  Too many times they are overlooked during community work. 
 

1. Youth are essential stakeholders in the community. They often engage in ways that many people don’t realize.  Sometimes youth are more effective than adults at getting other youth and adults involved in their community.  They may be able to reach adults, such as their neighbors, friends, and family members in ways that formal efforts can miss.  They also have friends in the neighborhood who can also influence their friends, neighbors, and family members.  Think of this as a snowball effect.  Also, young people can bring an energy and enthusiasm to community action that might be missing among older community members.  One way to get youth involved is as a group.  Creating a youth organization sounds like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be a formal organization.  Look at Chapter 20, Section 9 of the Community Tool Box for some pointers on establishing a “youth organization” that will encourage youth to become involved in community action. /en/table-of-contents/implement/provide-information-enhance-skills/youth-organizations/main

2. The importance of participation is [a] to ensure that the community response represents the views of as many community members as possible, [b] to leverage as much people power or political pressure as possible, and [c] so that the solution will be accepted, endorsed and “owned” by the community.

 
And with youth specifically, simply put, youth are as much a part of the community as anyone else, so any issue that affects the community as whole will affect youth as well.  Youth are affected by multiple levels in society and the community, so think about all those different levels that youth engage – their family, neighborhood, school, the police, businesses, etc.  Urie Bronfenbrenner developed a theory of child development in the context of systems.  You might find that framework helpful while thinking about how youth are impacted and can impact the world around them.  https://www.simplypsychology.org/Bronfenbrenner.html
 
3)    Getting youth to engage takes creativity and letting them know that their voice and action matters in the community.  There are multiple ways to get youth involved creatively with community-level issues, such as photovoice (see Chapter 3, Section 20 in the Community Tool Box /en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-n...) and other art projects.   As importantly, you or other organizers need to make clear to them that they can and do have an impact.  If they are having fun and see results of their efforts, it will attract other youth to become engaged and leaders will likely emerge during their involvement. Chapter 13, Section 7 of the Community Tool Box can give you a few pointers about leadership at any age.  /en/table-of-contents/leadership/leadership-ideas/lead...