FYS-Forums is a cross-field strategic partnership creating a model for school led global citizenship youth forums responding to 4 key EU-wide needs: This will address 4 related school needs linked to key EU policy objectives: Need 1: To better motivate and engage EU youth within education, Need 2: To better develop youth transversal skills and competences in EU youth Need 3: For EU teachers to develop more relevant and inspiring curricula and student centred pedagogies Need 4: To increase EU youth civic engagement and active citizenship The partners in the project are Oxfam GB (coordinator), Oxfam Italy, Juanimo Karjeros Centras, CARDET and the University of Lodz. Partners know global citizenship forums can meet these 4 needs because: - High quality learning opportunities like a youth forum are motivating; a touchstone moment in a young person’s education, engaging in learning and civic life - Global citizenship as a context interests youth, and can inspire social actions locally/globally - Youth forums and global citizenship effectively developing transversal youth leadership skills (e.g. communication) and personal development (e.g. confidence, self esteem) - Both provide valuable opportunities to bring real life issues into the curriculum; successfully supporting youth to understand complex global challenges FYS-Forums will create a sustainable model for forums aimed at younger pupils which embeds work pre and post forum into the formal and informal curriculum of schools. It therefore has 3 objectives: OBJ1: To create an inclusive, sustainable, networked model of EU wide curriculum linked global citizenship youth forums that are delivered by schools for schools OBJ2: To provide teachers and young people with the tools to promote effective and inclusive youth leadership across formal and informal education through global citizenship forums OBJ3: To influence at local, national and EU levels to promote more inclusive and participatory youth led policies and opportunities within EU education systems. The project will create 6 intellectual outputs to achieve this 1. An EU needs analysis 2. A forum planning toolkit 3. A teachers curriculum toolkit 4. A youth leadership training module 5. A pan-EU online forum web portal 6. An academic report with policy recommendations Outputs will be created working with 4 hub and 8 trial schools across 5 countries, ensuring IOs are relevant and transversal, and initiating an EU network. There will be a focus on engaging schools with higher than national average proportions of at risk pupils and to support such pupils to engage in the model inclusively. They will engage 3 target groups: Group 1: Youth (11-18) and teachers in our project hub/trial schools (engaging higher proportion of at risk pupils than national average).They will trial the tools. Group 2: Youth and teachers in other lower secondary schools in partner countries and EU-wide, to whom we will disseminate the tools. Group 3: Education stakeholders at local, national and EU level (e.g. policy makers, professional bodies etc), who we will aim to influence. Delivering the above will ensure we meet the 4 needs identified above, and therefore meet the project goal; small scale global citizenship youth forums in school education drive increased motivation, participation and skills development equitably within education and civic life for young people aged 11-18 across the EU. The project will also conduct continuous and comprehensive communication and dissemination activities, and host 1 transnational youth policy forum multiplier event, and 5 national multiplier events. Together the outputs and dissemination will lead to direct impacts on 28,800 youth, over 300 teachers and 50 key education stakeholders during the life of the project. More importantly the high quality outputs will lead to the take-up of a sustainable and inclusive global citizenship youth forum model with significant multiplication impacts across EU schools. Partners will also integrate the model into their own educational offers. More broadly, FYS-Forums will contribute to sustainable shifts in the institutional practice and mindset of EU education systems to better promote genuine youth participation and leadership through formal and informal education in school.
Future Youth School Forums (FYS Forums) is a global citizenship education project encouraging schools to run youth led forums on global issues for other schools in their local community. The FYS Forums model has three main phases which include pre-forum critical thinking activities on the forum’s global issue, the forum itself, and post-forum civic engagement where young people plan and take formal action on an aspect of the global issue. FYS Forums is designed to better motive and engage young people within the formal education system, support the development of young people’s traversal skills, encourage teachers to develop more inspiring, participatory and relevant practice and curricula, and to increase active citizenship and civic engagement across Europe. FYS Forums bring real life issues into the curriculum while supporting young people to understand complex global challenges. The first global issue in year one was migration under the banner of ‘People Forced to Flee’. The second global issue (as voted by young people), was gender inequality. Through the project’s participatory methodologies, young people are supported to respond to global issues and challenges by enabling them to think critically about the issue, and discuss how best to take action that is suitable and informed. The three main objectives of FYS Forums were: • To create an inclusive, sustainable, networked model of EU wide curriculum linked global citizenship youth forums that are delivered by schools for schools. • To provide teachers and young people with the tools to promote effective and inclusive youth leadership across formal and informal education through global citizenship forums. • To influence at local, national and EU levels to promote more inclusive and participatory youth led policies and opportunities within EU education systems. FYS Forums partnered with several schools who took ownership of the planning and delivery of the forums. In the first year, ‘Hub Schools’ were recruited who led on the first round of People Forced to Flee forums. There were five Hub Schools in the project – one each in Italy, Cyprus, Lithuania, the UK and Poland. The five Hub Schools stayed engaged throughout the whole project and ran forums in year 2. Additionally, in the second year, the partnership extended to ‘Trial Schools’ who were also asked to run their own forums. Trial Schools could choose which global issue they wanted to run a forum on. There were eight Trial Schools in the project – two each in Italy, Cyprus, Lithuania and the UK. All Hub and Trial Schools were responsible for inviting ‘Participating Schools’ to come to their forum and undertake pre-and post-learning activities. There was a total of 71 unique Participating Schools who attended a total of 20 forums over the three years of the project. The wealth of learning resources available on the FYS Forums website enable schools to fully engage in the forums process. These include: • A step by step interactive online toolkit leading teachers and young people through the steps to either set up and participate in a forum, or to attend another schools’ forum. • Learning resources on the global issue including 7 workshops for students who are attending a forum, short activities for the whole school to learn about the global issue, a treasure hunt, quiz and assembly presentation. • 15 Transversal skills modules to prepare young people for the forum including leadership, teamwork, decision making and time management. Through these resources, FYS Forums provide a sustainable model for schools to run their own youth-led forums and can be applied and adapted to suit a range of educational needs and contexts. While the project reached 12,251 young people aged 12-18 through post-forum actions, the materials and resources above can be adapted further for use with younger or older young people and indeed adults. The project produced several reports including: • Youth Participation and Global Citizenship: Challenges and Recommendations for Future Youth School Forums – a contextual analysis of the educational landscape and needs for the project in Italy, Cyprus, Lithuania and the UK, and provides recommendations for programme design and implementation. • Youth Participation for Active Global Citizenship: Future Youth School Forums Report – an analysis of the project’s implementation and impact. • Future Youth School Forums: External Evaluation – an external review of the impact of the project. Collectively, the resources, forums and post-action activity directly impacted 12,638 young people and teachers across five European countries, 72 key stakeholders and a further 15,000 individuals through wider dissemination activity including teacher training, seminars at conferences and participatory workshops. FYS Forums was a three-year partnership between Oxfam GB in the UK, Oxfam Italia in Italy, CARDET in Cyprus, Jaunimo Karjeros Centras in Lithuania and the University of Łódź in Poland.