1. The ‘Youth Leaders Across Borders’ project is a strategic partnership in the field of youth, led by 4 high quality youth leadership organisations from the UK, Germany, Sweden, and Poland. The project is led by StreetGames in the UK - a national youth sports charity. The other three participant organisations are BSJ based in Brandenburg in Germany; SISU based in Vastergotland and Varmland in Sweden and V4S which works across Poland. 2. This two year project will create an innovative training resource to improve the transversal and leadership skills of young people, particularly those with fewer opportunities. The 4 participant organisations are specialists in grassroots sports for youth, and each organisation has developed successful youth leader training programmes. 3. The focus is on promoting healthy behaviours through the practice of grassroots sport. The 6 module training resource enables young leaders to promote healthy behaviours to their peers. In addition, the project will focus on engaging more disadvantaged young females as new leaders, and ensuring that both youth and sport workers and the young people gain an international understanding from the training.4. The new training resource will improve and add value to the best existing modules from the 4 participant organisations through transnational cooperation, and create new modules about gender and internationalisation. 5. The new training resource is targeted at over 2000 organisations that deliver youth leadership training. Initially, these will be the organisations in the networks of the 4 participant organisations. Beyond this initial goal, the project dissemination plan will reach thousands of organisations across the EU that want to provide disadvantaged youth with access to innovative and informal learning that develops soft transversal skills that are advantageous in the labour market. The resources will be in 5 languages.6. The transnational significance of this project is very important, as it adds value to best practice in four different countries to create a unique and important new training resource that will stimulate young people to be active. Levels of physical activity are dropping across Europe leading to a public health crisis, especially for young people with fewer opportunities. 7. The project will bring together the four participant organisations five times to develop and test the training resource. A robust evaluation plan will ensure that a number of methods are used to determine the success of the new training modules and ensure that the project is kept on track.8. The project will produce important results. A new open resource website will be created, which details all of the results of the project, including free access to the new training resource. The results will impact on the pedagogy of the training programmes of the four participant organisations, and the target group organisations in their networks and beyond. 9. The results will be disseminated to higher and further education, NGO’s and strategic organisations in the 4 countries to impact on their policies for informal youth leader training. 10. In the longer term, youth leadership training in healthy behaviours will be modernised and successfully delivered by a large number of institutions in the four participating countries and beyond. Thousands of disadvantaged young people will develop new leadership skills through this new training course which will generate a long term leadership impact. Young women with fewer opportunities will be more engaged in leadership roles. 11. The project will positively impact on the views of young people in understanding their lives in a wider international context, promoting more mobility, intercultural dialogue, and increased participation in European democratic life. Their leadership work will have positive health benefits for tens of thousands of their peers. The multiplier effect potential is a very exciting aspect of this important project.
The ‘Youth Leaders Across Borders’ (YLAB) project was a strategic partnership between 4 high quality youth leadership organisations from the UK, Germany, Sweden, and Poland. The project objectives for YLAB were; To produce new training resources that work across borders that 1. Promote youth leadership, health improvement and citizenship by generating young leaders from disadvantaged communities who are well placed to get their peers moving 2. Widen the appreciation and policy commitment to informal youth learning at all levels of Government and NGO’s 3. Support target group agencies to provide disadvantaged youth with access to innovative, informal life-long learning and training that develops soft transversal skills advantageous in the labour market: confidence, communication, leadership and reliability. 4. Pay particular attention to the gender gap. 5. Develop practice across borders and internationalise youth leadership work by co-operatively producing an open education resource that works in the EU context. 6. Work towards the accreditation of a new youth training in programme to enhance internationalised youth work. The 30 month project has created open access, training resources that improve the leadership skills of young people, particularly those with fewer opportunities. The 6 modules enable young leaders to promote healthy behaviours to their peers, learning from Europe-wide best practice. Resources have been developed in 5 languages to increase access: English, Welsh, German, Swedish and Polish. The transnational nature of this project has added value. The unique training resource created, has stimulated 37 young people to be active and identify themselves as global citizens. The project has positively impacted on the views of these young people, in understanding their lives in a wider international context, increasing mobility, fostering intercultural dialogue, and increasing participation in European democratic life. The project had four participating organisations; StreetGames UK – The leading UK charity committed to ensuring disadvantaged young people and communities lead healthy active lifestyles. Engaging with over 1,000 locally trusted organisations, StreetGames engages over 30,000 young people aged 12-25 each year across the UK www.streetgames.org V4Sport Foundation Poland – With the mission to increase the number of people physically active in Poland, V4Sport works with both national and international partners to achieve this mission, basing its work around 5 pillars. Advocacy, research, innovative social campaigns, cross sectoral cooperation and capacity building. http://www.v4sport.eu/ Brandenburgische Sportjugend Germany (BSJ) – The 'Brandenburgische Sportjugend' is an umbrella organisation covering youth work and sport activities for young people from over 2600 clubs in Brandenburg. The work is guided by the aim to use sport as a tool for youth work. BSJ offers projects regarding sport, youth-work and social-youth-work including crime prevention, integration through sport, street soccer for tolerance, and voluntary opportunities including European Voluntary Service. http://sportjugend-bb.de/ SISU Idrottsutbildarna Sweden - SISU is the educational organisation attached to the Swedish Sport Confederation. Its main organisational aim is to work with sport clubs and sport Federations, developing and delivering education, training and development programmes. Working across 21 districts, over 3 million people are members of sport clubs in Sweden. http://www.sisuidrottsutbildarna.se/ The project consisted of the following activities; Delivery of 3 Intellectual outputs to develop youth leadership training, training resources and an interactive website; 5 Transnational Project Meetings; 4 Multiplier Events; 5 Learning/Teaching/Training Activities, including 1 blended mobility event and 4 train the trainer events. YLAB has resulted in high quality teaching and learning resources that are relevant and fit for purpose to enable young leaders to gain a better understanding of their leadership skills, potential and how they can apply themselves in international contexts. The project has achieved the following impact; • 37 young people, 78% of those with fewer opportunities, have accessed and shaped the training content, as well as develop themselves into international youth leaders • 63 international trainers have been trained to deliver the training, in addition to the 8 trainers that developed the training form the 4 partner organisations •240 people attended multiplier events, to understand the project and how it could be beneficial to them and their organisations and communities • Social media – direct followers 19,745 and followers of the key partners and influential individuals who promoted on our behalf 29,230 • Newsletters/ press releases – across the partners’ circulation of circa 357,000 The full project results can be found here; http://www.youthleadersacrossborders.eu/