Summary of the project "Boost your possibilities! - Youth Centres for Youth mobility and Intercultural learning”- Strategic Partnerships brings together 10 Youth Centres from Finland (4), Slovenia (3) and Estonia (3) for a 24-month project, improving the quality and supporting individual centres’ strategies through international mobilities (4 partner meetings), learning activities (15 job shadows, training course) and a strong research dimension on local, regional, national and international level. The project and its activities are implemented in full in all three countries over the duration of 24 months, working on multiple levels and dimensions at the same time. The project's main aim is to collect, develop and transfer methodologies, approaches and competence of international youth work, carried out in different local and regional settings, and study their impact on young people, across the partner countries, bringing together 10 youth centres from 3 countries (Finland, Slovenia & Estonia) to complete a project cycle of 24 months. A set of objectives have been created to be tackled in the duration of the project: - Exchanging and remodeling, and gathering good practices of international youth work between youth centres - Exchanging and establishing expertise and work "flows used" in practice in the international projects - Creating clear and concrete links between regional / national / international level strategies and our international youth work practices - Research the impact of international youth work in different cultural and regional realities - Create a stronger (strategic) community around the youth centers to create sustainable surroundings and support for the growth of international youth work in youth centres - Improving the intercultural- and international project work competencies of individuals working in youth centers The project will tackle it's objectives on 3 different levels - local / regional, national and international: Local / Regional level: The project aims to support the individual youth centers' and their strategy implementation in developing international dimension as a tool for youth work. In concrete, it is foreseen that the project brings resources and support for individual centers to act upon their plans. A much needed "guiding community" will be created through the implementation of this project to support youth centre's taking their next steps (what ever the entry point), as good practices will be shared, and experience and expertise exchanged through the activities carried out in the project (described in detail later). Beside the sharing of good practices to local and regional youth centre's will all have their own "focal points" to work on (described in the partner details), that will also be supported and used as basis for the international mobilities set up during the projects. As one of the key elements, the project offers also resources for individual youth centres to set up regional cross sectorial cooperation and research dimension to be implemented in their practice. National level: The project aims to create a sustainable and contributing network between the international youth work actors in each local / regional reality. This is foreseen to happen through national level meetings, on-going support and structural reflection and evaluation of the project process, coordinated by each national coordinator (umbrella organisations). The project will set up an impact research together with youth researchers, to determine the needs and affect / impact of our work, in order to make it more visible and improve the quality of it. International level: The project aims to bring added value through exchange of practices and approaches form different national realities shared through seminars, individual mobility and training elements. This will be done through a strong research dimension on intenational, national and regional level. A multilingual publication -"Stairs to internationality" will be created based on the good practices and impact research carried out during the project.
Summary of the project "Boost your possibilities! - Youth Centres for Youth mobility and Intercultural learning”- Strategic Partnerships brought together 10 Youth Centres (and 1 research partner) from Finland (4), Slovenia (3) and Estonia (3) for a 27-month project. The project focused on improving the quality and supporting individual centres’ strategies - starting from each centre's own needs and reality - through international mobilities (4 partner meetings), learning activities (15 job shadows, 1 training course) and a strong research and activity dimensions on local, regional, national and international level. The project and its activities were implemented in full in all three countries over the duration of 27 months, working on multiple levels and dimensions (such as local level activities, regional networking, research, international exchange of practices and youth workers) at the same time. Looking from contextual basis, the need for developing international youth work competences in each partner centre was very unique to all. Some centres had already years of experience in IYW, where as some were beginners in the field. The project design aimed to allow development in centres regardless of their previous experience or capacities, offering a wide range of activities and "peer support" successfully to each other. The project's main aim was to collect, develop and transfer methodologies, approaches and competence of international youth work, carried out in different local and regional settings, and study their impact on young people across the partner countries. A set of objectives had been created to be tackled in the duration of the project. The project focused on: - Exchanging and remodeling, and gathering good practices of international youth work between youth centres - Exchanging and establishing expertise and work "flows used" in practice in the international projects - Creating clear and concrete links between regional / national / international level strategies and our international youth work practices - Research the impact of international youth work in different cultural and regional realities - Create a stronger (strategic) community around the youth centers to create sustainable surroundings and support for the growth of international youth work in youth centres - Improving the intercultural- and international project work competencies of individuals working in youth centres Furthermore, the project worked on multiple levels and we had also divided it's objectives on 3 different levels - local / regional, national and international: Local / Regional level: The project aimed to support the individual youth centers' and their strategy implementation in developing international dimension as a tool for youth work. In concrete, it was foreseen that the project brought resources, preconditions and support for individual centers to act upon their plans to become more "international" and offer activities that promote it as a value. A network and a "guiding community" was be created through the implementation of this project to support youth centre's taking their next steps (what ever the entry point was), through sharing good practices and experience. Exchange of expertise through the activities carried out in the project acted as the means for doing so. Beside the sharing of good practices to local and regional youth centre's all had their own "focal points" to work on (concrete objectives), that were also supported and used as basis for the international "spin-off" mobilities set up during the project. As one of the key elements, the project offered also resources for individual youth centres to set up regional cross-sectorial cooperation and research dimension to be implemented in their practice. National level: The project aimed to create a sustainable and contributing network between the international youth work actors in each local / regional reality. The idea behind it is that each youth centre could get better and more sustainable support on national level from their peers from this network as a result of the project. This was foreseen to happen through national level meetings, on-going support and structural reflection and evaluation of the project process, coordinated by each national coordinator (umbrella organisations). The project set up an impact research together with youth researchers, to determine the needs and affect / impact of our work, in order to make it more visible and improve the quality of it. International level: The project aimed to bring added value through exchange of practices and approaches form different national realities shared through seminars, individual mobility and training elements. This was done through a strong research dimension on international, national and regional level supporting the concrete actions of the project. As an output a publication was created to conclude and summarise the results of this process, and added value of IYW.