According to the Youth Report 2015 elaborated by European Commission, young people’s human and social capital is one of Europe’s greatest assets for the future. The European Union and its Member States need to invest in the potential that 90 million young Europeans represent in terms of skills, creativity and diversity. In fact, the Report shows how the economic crisis has hit young people particularly hard, by widening the gap between those with more and those with fewer opportunities: some young people are increasingly excluded from social and civic life and some are at risk of disengagement, marginalisation or even violent radicalisation. Many young people struggle to find quality jobs which seriously hampers their path towards independence and in spite of a decrease in most Member States after its 2013 peak, youth unemployment remains a serious concern: 8.7 million young Europeans cannot find work and the proportion facing long-term unemployment or involuntary part-time work remains high. Unemployment rates are different among the Member States but continue to show that unemployment for this target group is double or even triple the rate of general unemployment in Europe: United Kingdom 13.3 %, Italy 38.4%, Poland 17.0% Spain 43.0% Portugal 28.2% Ireland 16.7%,Bulgaria 19.0 % (2016). In total, 13.7 million are neither in employment nor education or training (NEETs), close to 27 million are at risk of poverty or social exclusion and poverty rates are higher for young people than for the overall population. Moreover, In EU-28 an average of 10.7 % of 18 to 24 year-olds have left education and training without completing an upper secondary programme according to Eurostat 2016. Because of changing society and value/social/economic crisis, youth experiment several situations in their daily life, that are characterised by conflicts: these ones are linked to problems of relationships within a youth group, or relationships between young people and those in authority individualism, imposed authority, hierarchic models, lack of employment, lack of exchange and peer evaluation, regressive dynamics, contradictions, educational models promoting the acquisition of knowledge instead of competences and skills. This framework could make really difficult the conflict management and, if on one hand it increase youth attitude to aggressiveness in some youth, on the other hand it could generate a depressive attitude because of youth feeling of inappropriateness that occur when youth are victims of forms of racism or bullying, as well when they are protagonist of an early dropout/of unemployment. So, the NEMO proposal intends to give youth new approaches, methodologies and tools for managing conflicts linked to their cultural/social and working situation, according to non formal learning techniques, so to bring out conflicts to overcome them and allow to build common and shared solutions for boost their wellbeing, social inclusion, employability. This way, young people will be empowered to develop critical judgement and participate confidently in society. Specifically, NEMO aims at promoting a non formal training experience about emotional competences, self-esteem, tolerance of frustration and ambiguity,self-awareness, awareness of others and empathy,communication and interaction skills,awareness of personal and cultural attitudes to conflict behaviour in conflict situations, ability to analyse and evaluate conflict, practical skills to manage and overcome conflicts. Traning will be carried out through a variety of non-formal learning methods and techniques already experimented by the partnership in several regional and European initiatives (pedagogical theatre, psychodrama/Impro theatre, maieutic approach, role play) and will be aimed mainly at supporting youth aged 16 to 30 in facing the actual economic and thereby educational, family and job market crisis, communication revolution, political untrustful. The proposal provides also a capacity building action addressed to youth workers who often deal with difficult situations in which they may be asked to assist in resolving young people’s problems and conflicts. They need to understand the nature of conflict, its effects on people in a range of contexts, both at an individual and at a group level, and the different strategies to manage it as a potential means for growth and positive change. The project action will be carried out at European level, in seven different national contextscharacterised by relevant rates of youth unemployment/NEETS (for the most higher than EU average), where both at policy and operative level it is necessary to identify sustainable solutions to prevent youth social exclusion, specifically working on the acquistion of conflict management skills through non formal education. Facing the merging needs at European level, will allow partners to put together experiences and competences for finding sustainable solutions, according to EU framework.
The NEMO project has striven to provide young people with new approaches, methodologies and tools for managing conflicts linked to their cultural/social and working situation. These have been centred in non formal learning techniques; seeking to enable young people to articulate their conflicts and then find ways to overcome them, building shared solutions that boost their wellbeing, social inclusion and employability. Partners in the project believe that in this way, young people are empowered to develop critical judgement and participate confidently in society. For this project we took a broad view of the definition of young people, being those aged 16-30. The Youth Report 2015 identifies young people’s human and social capital is one of Europe’s greatest assets for the future. The Report was focusing on the then economic crisis and its' impact on young people. This has been further exacerbated by the impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic, which emerged in early 2020 and is still creating an impact in the second half of 2021. Unemployment rates are different among the Member States but youth unemployment rates reported by Eurostat in July 2021, compared with May 2020, showed an an increase of 1.2 percentage points over 2019. For the partners this project was very timely, as we could see even more necessity to find innovative ways to enable young people to manage conflicts. The seven project partners used research to gain a better understanding of what conflict might look like from the young person's perspective. The results of this research were published in both national reports and a trans-national report. A total of 382 young people responded to the surveys, across the seven partner counties, an average of 54 per country. This gave an good understanding for the partners of the characteristics of their specific young people. So for example, Italian partners were working with young people at local high schools in a city suburb, Polish partners were working with young people in higher education and in the UK, the target group were based in an area of high deprivation characterised by high levels of gang violence. This was taking place in early 2019, at a time well before the global pandemic. Fast forward to 2021, when following an extension of one year, partners were able to reflect on the differing impacts of Covid-19 on young people and integrate this understanding with the earlier research undertaken. Following the first research phase, the partners worked together to understand what they could develop in terms of a common understanding and approach that might be then shared with other youth workers. In June 2019, the partners gathered for a 'train the trainer' practice sharing event in Caravaca in central Spain. Partners shared elements of their current practice methods and discussed the theoretical backgrounds to their practice approaches. The NEMO trainers’ training approach was characterised by: • Fine-tuning approaches according to the specific target groups’ needs. • Testing their existing approaches in a peer-learning process; • Shaping a common framework • Piloting their refreshed practices to measure the effectiveness and impact of the practices on target groups. Piloting was scheduled for late Autumn 2019/early Spring 2020. Four partners had fully concluded their pilot before the impact of Covid-19. Once was engaged in the pilot process, and two had yet to start. The former, in England, switched to an online delivery. Two of the latter eventually also delivered in a virtual setting in 2021, and another returned to complete their evaluation when able to re-engage with schools. Despite the difficulties in maintaining momentum and working against a background of national and international anxiety and uncertainty, all partners were able to complete the process and deliver all the expected outputs. Moreover they were able to be adjusted to take into account the experience and understanding of what Covid-19 might add to the experience and management of personal conflicts for young people. The partners have produced five final outputs: Report on Self-assessment of Youth Conflict Management Skills - in two parts (Part I Statistical Data and Part II Good Practices) NEMO Learning Model NEMO Curriculum NEMO Toolkit NEMO Handbook. These have been uploaded to the Erasmus+ Project Results platform and the project website www.nemoproject.eu and are also available at https://www.enterprise360.me/?page_id=1065 The project has been able to identify immediate impacts on the direct targets, the 150 young people who attended the pilot programmes and the colleagues and youth organisations who have expressed interest in the model and the associated outputs. All of the project pilots used evaluations which recorded positive impacts on well-being and confidence in managing conflict situations. This was particularly noticeable in the feedback of those who were supported during Covid-19.