More than four in ten Europeans consider that their voice counts in the EU (42%, +13 percentage points since autumn 2013). The proportion of EU citizens who say that their voice does not count has fallen sharply, from two - thirds (66%), down to just above half (52%). The proportion of people, in CZ, POL and SK in terms of this is even higher than EU average – less people think, that their voice counts. The purpose of the project is to support civic engagement of the young people, as a crucial target group, by showing them effective ways, how to be more actively engaged.Therefore overall goal of the Who Else? - Student Local Initiatives project is to support civic engagement of youth from three countries in the EU. The specific goals are a) is to provide young people with learning opportunities, build their capacity to become engaged in local initiatives, b) to train teachers to be able to support their students, motivate them to plan, organize and evaluate their student initiates. The project will support 15 students in the age of 15-21, equally distributed in the partner countries CZ, SVK and EST as well as 15 teachers. Each of the students will become a peer leader and will build a core team for a local student initiative, which will tackle local issues focused on youth related matters but also topics which touch upon the lives of the whole community. This will be established by a needs assessment which the team will organize.Before they are able to this the project will provide them with skills and increase their capacities in project management, structural dialogue between youth and councilmen, fundraising, problem solving, etc. The same goes for the teachers, as they will function as a support and facilitate and mentor the student local initiatives. There will be five day meeting for 15 teachers, five from each country, where we will use the Who Else? methodology for supporting active citizenship of youth in and outside of schools and on how to integrate project education into the classroom curricula. Students will meet twice for a five day meeting so that they can increase their capacity to organize the local student initiatives by learning project management, team building, fundraising, PR and processes in the local communal politics. The meetings will be structured with workshops, discussions with experts and work in groups so that it is as practical as possible. The face to face workshops will be combined with webinars and Facebook communication so that students can stay in touch during the project as well.The project will train 15 students who will become local student initiative leaders, 15 teachers who will mentor the team of the initiative and function as their support. 15 local initiatives will be established, influencing lives in 15 communities, as much 180 students will be involved in organizing activities and events with the core teams of the initiatives and another up to 3000 people will be involved indirectly during the events and due to the results of the student initiatives.The impacts will include: Teachers will be empowered in supporting student local initiatives and have knowledge to integrate project education into the curriculum or the framework educational programs. Student peer leaders will have the competences to organize new local initiatives further into their adult life and gain a long term capacity to function as local leaders and organizers. More teacher-parent interaction will happen. The longer term benefits will include: Local communities will benefit from the initiatives the students will have organized. There will be greater participation of young people in the local council’s decision making process. Young people learn processes of policy making, at least on the local level. Based on the type of initiative the students may influence policies on the regional level as well. They will feel empowered for future active participation in civic issues, by practicing these processes through organization of the local student initiatives.
More than four in ten Europeans consider that their voice counts in the EU (42%, +13 percentage points since autumn 2013). The proportion of EU citizens who say that their voice does not count has fallen sharply, from two - thirds (66%), down to just above half (52%). The proportion of people, in CZ, POL and SK in terms of this is however higher than EU average – less people think, that their voice counts. The purpose of the project was to support civic engagement of young people, as a crucial target group, by showing them effective ways of being more actively engaged. The overall goal of the Who Else? - Student Local Initiatives project was therefore to support civic engagement of youth from three countries in the EU, specifically a) to provide young people with learning opportunities, build their capacity to become engaged in local initiatives, b) to train teachers to be able to support their students, motivate them to plan, organize and evaluate their student initiates. The project supported 15 students aged 15 to 21, equally distributed in partner countries CZ, SVK and EST as well as 15 teachers. Through the program, each of the students became a peer leader and built a core team for a local student initiative, which tackle local issues focused on youth related matters but also topics, which touch upon the lives of the whole community. This was established by a needs assessment organized by the team. To prepare them, we provided them with skills and increased their capacities in project management, structural dialogue between youth and councilmen, fundraising, problem solving, etc. The same goes for the teachers, as they functioned as a support, as facilitators and mentors for the student local initiatives. We organized a five-day meeting for 15 teachers, five from each country, where we used the Who Else? methodology for supporting active citizenship of youth in and outside of schools and on how to integrate project education into the classroom curricula. Students met twice for two five-day meetings so that they could increase their capacity to organize the local student initiatives by learning project management, team building, fundraising, PR and processes in the local communal politics. The meetings included workshops, discussions with experts and work in groups so that it was as practical as possible. The face-to-face workshops were combined with group conference calls and Facebook communication so that students could stay in touch during the project as well. The project trained 15 students who thus became local student initiative leaders, 15 teachers who were mentors to the team of their respective initiative and functioned as their support. 15 local initiatives were established, influencing lives in 15 communities, about 180 students were involved in organizing activities and events with the core teams of the initiatives and another about 3000 people were involved indirectly during the events and due to the results of the student initiatives. The impacts include: Teachers were empowered in supporting student local initiatives and gained knowledge to integrate project education into the curriculum or the framework educational programs. Student peer leaders gained competences to organize new local initiatives further into their adult life and have now a long-term capacity to function as local leaders and organizers. More teacher-parent interaction took place. The longer-term benefits include: Local communities benefit from the initiatives the students have organized. There is greater participation of young people in the local council’s decision-making process. Young people learned processes of policy-making, at least on the local level. Based on the type of initiative, the students have influenced policies on the regional level as well. They felt empowered for future active participation in civic issues, by practicing these processes through organization of the local student initiatives.