The project 'European Youth Volunteers as Active Citizens' (EYVAC) aims at improving the quality and sustainability of social work for marginalised youth in Europe with Youth volunteers as drivers of change. The three main objectives of are: a) Exploring and developing innovative methods for sustainable social youth work based on best practices from relevant NGOs, scholars, practitioners, local authorities and Red Cross societies in Denmark, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria b) Establishing a transnational European network where innovative and best practices are shared through an online Open Educational Resource (OER) Platform to inspire all relevant stakeholders c) Empowering young volunteers and youth workers in Denmark, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria to become progressive leaders of social work, leaders of change and active citizens in their local communities. Youth in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Denmark are at the forefront of the societal challenges and have a risk of being excluded both socially and economically from their society. In order to reach out to the youth and address the negative impacts in their lives there is potential for civil society organisations to keep working on improving and adjusting their social projects and use innovative methods to empower and enable youth to become positive influential citizens in their local communities. Since the economies of many European countries are still affected by the financial crisis there is a need for the states, public and local authorities to explore innovative cooperation forms, new alliances and find alternative ways to sustain the quality and high level of social support and services to marginalized groups. Within this new situation many states are seeking to improve and utilise the cooperation with the civil society sector and their social programs. Danish Red Cross (DRC) together with Danish Red Cross Youth (DRCY), Bulgarian Red Cross (BRC), Romanian Red Cross (RRC) and Hungary Red Cross (HRC) are strong and consolidated CSOs and all aim at ensuring sustainability in their projects. The target groups of the project are: active youth volunteers in the NRCS, relevant public authorities (ministries, municipalities, regions), students from relevant academic disciplines, scholars/experts, NGOs, local practitioners and marginalised and vulnerable youth. These different stakeholders will participate in the following activities: The activities and results can be divided into three phases. The preparatory phase where a participatory transnational meeting will take place. Implementation phase where the various sectors and stakeholders will come together in the Leadership Academy ACTIVATE training, the conference and in the four National Academies. The participants will experience new ways and methods of facilitating social volunteer driven projects for marginalised youth. The discussions and established learning forum will be kept alive at the OER Platform that will be developed, tested and launched in this phase. Dissemination and final phase will be where the OER is developed as an engaging and motivating digital platform where all stakeholders involved in this project is being nursed and keep developing their skills. EYVAC will be using a peer-to-peer method and the project will have impact at both the European, national and local level: At the European level the project will establish a transnational network that are sharing knowledge, experiences, best practices and innovative methods in conducting social youth work. The OER platform will become a learning platform relevant for all NRCSs in the world as well as CSOs in Europe working with youth projects. At the national level the volunteers will increase their capacities and gain knowledge in initiating dialogue and cooperating effectively with the local authorities. The volunteers and youth workers will ensure that the innovative practices and exchanges developed at the European level, will be converted to the national level and thereby increase the capacities of national social youth work in the local NRCSs. At the local level: youth workers, volunteers and socially marginalised youth will experience increased capacities and feel inspired from their youth peers. The work with social marginalised youth will improve and they will become active, democratic and engaged citizens contributing positively to their local communities. The EYVAC project will in the long term create hundreds of engaged and motivated youth as active citizens in more than four European countries. They will have a lot of social capital and the potential to become progressive leaders in their organisations. Indirectly the EYVAC project will in a few years have reached more than 2000 different stakeholders through the OER platform that will be one of the leading digital inspiration source of social work for especially youth volunteers in Europe and the Middle East.
The project 'European Youth Volunteers as Active Citizens' (EYVAC) has over 18 months worked towards improving the quality and sustainability of social work for marginalized youth in Europe with Young Red Cross volunteers as drivers of change. The project has been implemented by Red Cross societies in Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary and Romania. The background for the project was that all partners had experienced that young people in their countries over the past years had seen a worsening of their situation. Particularly the economic crisis had exacerbated inequality, poverty and social exclusion and put pressure on the social protection systems. The negative effects were long jobless periods, lack of self-esteem, lack of social and economic capital, lack of motivation to start a family and increasing stress symptoms among the young population. As the project was about to start, Europe experienced a sudden very large influx of migrants fleeing from conflict mainly in the Middle East and Afghanistan. This affected the partner countries as well and the partners therefore decided to include migrants as a key target group of the project. The three main objectives of the project have been: a) Exploring and developing innovative methods for sustainable social youth work based on best practices from relevant NGOs, scholars, practitioners, local authorities and Red Cross societies in Denmark, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria b) Establishing a transnational European network where innovative and best practices are shared through an online Open Educational Resource (OER) Platform to inspire all relevant stakeholders c) Empowering young volunteers and youth workers in Denmark, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria to become progressive leaders of social work, leaders of change and active citizens in their local communities. The main target groups of the project have been: Young volunteers in the partner organizations, other civil society organizations, public authorities (ministries, municipalities), decision makers and key influencers such as academics and experts. Additionally the general public has been a target group for awareness raising activities and the project partners have therefore worked closely with the media in the different countries. Lastly the project has sought to include potential end beneficiaries as resource persons and particularly young migrants and local youth have therefore also been a target group of the project. The project has had 3 main types of activities The project kicked off with an international conference in Denmark. The youth conference was coordinated by the DRCY in close cooperation with the youth volunteers. The conference was run by 24 youth volunteers from the four partner organizations. Following the international conference each partner implemented National Academies and events. These national academies had a different outlook in each country. The common denominator for the academies were that they discussed and raised awareness about how youth can be active citizens for marginalized people, in particular for migrants and for vulnerable youth in their local community. The third type of activity has been the development of an online platform where ideas, manuals and best practices can be shared between active young people from across the world. The digital platform, red-y.org is simultaneously the hub for developing an online transnational network for dedicated young people where they can meet and share experiences on social inclusion activities. The project has been implemented by youth volunteers together with young people and for vulnerable youth. The overall methods carrying out project activities have been based on an understanding of youth's rights to develop and discuss material and approaches that suits the European youth population best. The project has used a participatory approach that has ensured that all partners have been able to contribute with relevant experiences. The project has been implemented using a peer-to-peer method. Thereby the project has had impact at local, national and European level: At the European level the project has established a transnational network of young motivated volunteers who are sharing knowledge, experiences, best practices and innovative methods in conducting social youth work. The digital platform is supporting this engagement. At the national level young volunteers have increased their capacities and gained knowledge on initiating dialogue and cooperating effectively with local authorities, media and other civil society organizations. Furthermore both the partners and other key stakeholders have gained increased awareness about the situation and the rights of migrants and in particular about the needs of young migrants. At the local level youth workers, volunteers and socially marginalized youth have strengthened their capacity to engage in peer to peer activities.