Social Justice Generation?

Two days ago I was walking around Ubud with one of the other students from my program, talking about our summer plans. I mentioned something about an NGO and she stopped me and asked what an NGO is. It threw me off, and I spent a couple of minutes trying to come up with a suitable definition, NGO's being a sort of nebulous concept.

Her confusion was the same that I remember feeling when I first learned about them (in high school, maybe?): can't "non-governmental organization" refer to almost anything? So that part of it didn't surprise me quite as much; it was more that she, a twenty-year-old American college student, had no idea what I was talking about. For me, NGO's are a huge part of what I do at school. The Africa relief club I was part of freshman year works closely with them, and so does the Women's Center and QSU. Most of my friends work with them during the school year and get internships with NGO's in the summer. A few of my friends have plans to start their own after graduation. So I find myself wondering if maybe it's just the crowd I hang out with at school. Are the majority of students in my generation unfamiliar with NGO's and what they do?

If yes, what does that indicate, if anything? I know that my generation is sometimes pointed to as the generation who sits on our hands instead of going out and protesting or being activists. That, of course, is something I'll argue any day; most of us just have a different approach to problem-solving than our parents' generation. But does this student's unfamiliarity with NGO's demonstrate that there is a section of my generation who fits that description? If so, what will that mean for the future?

(Of course, there's also the question of whether NGO's and other humanitarian organizations are the way to fix things. Maybe more on that question later, but I took a whole course on that last semester and still don't have answers.)

I'm not sure how many people are regularly reading the blog at this point, but I'd love to hear any and all opinions you guys have about this.