The world is gradually becoming witness to the disenfranchisement of youth. This is partially due to a global unrest in relation to the economic system placing young people at a disadvantaged socio-economic position with heightened youth unemployment, and also due to political distrust, a fall of values and socially-oriented causes as well as reduced belief in bottom-up social change. Similarly, feelings of exclusion or inequalities diminish further the will to participate. At the same time, young people are largely characterised as ‘passive recipients’ and so the role of youth in development and decision-making is marginalized and/or undervalued with the gap between local, regional, national and international development and youth engagement growingly widening. Participation can, however, be strengthened by including youth in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of tools, policies and projects and setting youth civic engagement as a mainstreamed principle of initiatives. There is, therefore, a need for a plateau that aims to build the confidence in young people, transfer skills and give them the responsibility and ownership to engage in civic and cultural life while at the same time impact positively on the social ecosystem. Through active engagement, youth have the potential to become lifelong contributors to local well-being and a thriving social economy. The proposed project will be implemented transnationally over 3 countries with the following partnership structure of NGOs and local authorities respectively Spain (ITC, FASL), Greece (KMOP, ADDMA), and Cyprus (CARDET, AA).The purpose of the project is to recruit young people with fewer opportunities to act as ‘change makers’ (Community Angels) in their communities to conceive and carry out local strategies for socio-economic development, utilising disused spaces (land recycling). The project’s specific objectives are to: reduce disenfranchisement of youth by instigating a sentiment of social responsibility; improve self-esteem and confidence of young people by (re)introducing them in their local communities; tackle social exclusion through the active involvement and motivation of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds; transfer know-how from successful youth civic participation models in local development; engage local stakeholders, private actors, training providers, and CSOs in joint planning for socio-economic growth and stability; promote multi-level and multi-stakeholder collaborative approaches to address socio-economic issues; designate bottom-up solutions to establish the link between youth civic participation, youth capacity building and local sustainable development; bridge the gap between the world of formal qualifications, basic/key skills and social entrepreneurship.The implementation of the project unfolds in two phases, the preparatory phase and the implementation phase, where the Preparatory Phase entails the conduct of research on the needs of the community, identification of disused/discontinued spaces and drafting needs assessment reports and recommendations papers; and the Implementation Phase entails: a)elaboration of the training curriculum and its components, recruitment of participants, delivery of training, and b)presentation and selection of ideas for actions, development of local action plan mobilizing community assets/resources, c) implementing activities included in the community action plan by the Community Angels with ongoing mentoring and guidance of partners, d)monitoring and reporting of activities. Dissemination and project management and coordination activities are foreseen as horizontal to the project’s implementation.You.Change.Com envisions long-term impact based on the following results stemming from the successful implementation of project activities: improved access, mobilisation and civic participation of young people to offer solutions encountered in their local communities; enhanced capacities and knowledge of young participants in local development strategies, social responsibility principles, strategic planning, social entrepreneurship and in cross-cutting themes; improved cooperation between NGOs and local authorities for mutually elaborating and implementing local development strategies; enhanced capacity of partner organisations to promote participation opportunities for youth in general and disadvantaged youth in particular; boosted quality of life and well-being of communities; increased awareness and enhanced capacity for policy formulation, establishing incentives/schemes among local/regional/national and European authorities and decision-makers to promote youth participation; boosted public awareness on local development issues and re-evaluation of youth participation.
The world is gradually becoming witness to the disenfranchisement of youth. The world is gradually becoming witness to the disenfranchisement of youth. This is due, in part, to the recent economic recession, which has placed young people in a disadvantaged socio-economic position with higher youth unemployment, and has generated political distrust and loss of values in society. As a result, feelings of exclusion or inequality further diminish the will of youth to participate. Thus, young people are characterized to a large extent as "passive recipients" and the role of youth in development and decision making is marginalized or underestimated. It is verified, therefore, that it is necessary to build trust in young people, transfer skills and give them responsibility and encourage their right to participate in civic and cultural life, while at the same time generating a positive impact on the social ecosystem. Participation can be strengthened by including young people in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of tools, policies and projects, and by establishing the civic commitment of young people as a priority. This project has been implemented in 3 countries with a dual partnership structure including, for each country, a support entity and a local-based entity: Spain (ITC and FASL), Greece (KMOP and ADDMA) and Cyprus (CARDET and AA ). The objective of the project is to involve and recruit young people with fewer opportunities to act as "promoters of change" (Community Angels) in their local communities to conceive and carry out socio-economic development strategies, using disused spaces (urban recycling). The objectives include addressing social exclusion through active participation and motivation of young people in disadvantaged environments; Involve local stakeholders, private entities, trainers and NGOs in joint planning to promote growth and socio-economic stability and promote multilevel collaborative approaches to promote youth social entrepreneurship. The implementation of the project has been developed in two phases: the training phase and the implementation phase. The training phase has included: • carrying out basic research on the training needs of young people, including the analysis of 63 responses: 27 responses from Spain, 17 responses from Greece and 21 responses from Cyprus. • Based on the results of the analysis, the preparation of the training curriculum in 4 training modules in 3 languages (EN, GR and ES): soft skills; fundraising skills; skills for the recruitment and training of paid staff including general administrative tasks and local action planning skills and information in the framework of local development strategies. • The recruitment of the participants and the training itself, of 40 hours in an average of 10 sessions per country, with the completion of the training by 45 participants (15 per country). The implementation phase has included: • The development of a common methodology for the 3 countries involved; • The presentation of local action plans prepared by young people as part of the "practicum" of the training, and the selection in each country, through committees created specifically for that purpose; • The development of each local action plan and the mobilization of resources in Spain, Greece and Cyprus: In Spain: (Almería): "Workshops for the empowerment of young people in Los Almendros" In Greece: (Athens): "Educational theater workshops to raise awareness about human trafficking" In Cyprus (Agios Athanasios): "Human Scale Park"; • The implementation of activities included in the community action plan by the youth with continuous orientation; • The preparation of a guide for the implementation of local action plans that facilitate the dissemination and transferability of the model tested in the framework of the project. • Follow-up and report of final evaluation of activities. The results and impact have reached and even exceeded expectations, including the design of 4 complete training modules in 3 languages (EN; ES; GR), completion of the training of 45 young trainees (out of 60 recruited), the selection and successful implementation of 3 local action plans selected through multidisciplinary selection committees, the participation of 136 interested in the day of diffusion held in Almeria in May 2018 as well as the participation of 42 interested in Athens and 40 in Cyprus in the context of multiplication events. The dissemination activities have consisted of a battery of actions including website and Facebook, press releases, newlstters and dissemination events that have exceeded the scope of 5,000 people initially planned with the publication in local press (in Spanish and Greek) of the different activities of the project.