Although the young people are the future of our planet, Youth work, which targets especially those young people who are in need of support and encouragement to become and stay as active players in our society, is at best an underfunded and often also scattered sector trying to make the best out of the little funding it receives. The YOUTH CARD project will create a supporting digital tool for Youth work that helps to bring together the organisations in the field, disseminate services and activities available for the youth and collect statistical evidences that can be used to steer the funding to the activities that best reach the youth, in places where it is the most needed. In addition to this, this tool includes modern and innovative supporting mechanisms for activating youth, such as support for rewarding and gamification processes and targeted benefits, as well as possibility for young people to create their own Activity CVs, directly empowering them in finding inner strengths and assisting in job-seeking. Collecting statistical information of young people’s interest and actual participation in activities offered and feeding this information forward to tools used for auditing youth work also raises the level of professionality in the evaluation of the whole field of work. To achieve this, the project will develop three Outputs, in which a digital Youth Card is piloted in five EU countries; Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany and Portugal. Then organisations working with young people in the Partner regions are invited to join the Youth Card Ecosystem, and features supporting the networking of the organisations, collecting evidende of the effect of their work, and features empowering the young people such as an Activity CV will be developed. Finally a Mobile Application will be created to support all stakeholdersand especially the youth in finding interesting activities and developing themselves as active members of their communities. For professionals working with the youth, the project produces a Training Manual for continuous professional development and finding ways to incorporate the Youth Card ecosystem in their work. A Recommendations Document is produced to inform the policy makers of the findings of the project. The project, implemented by organisations both professionalising in Youth work and / or providing institutional funding for it, will create regional Youth Card ecosystems in each participating country, reaching in total thousands of young people within the project duration. As the outputs have potential for national impact in each member country, the results will be disseminated through each partners national networks. By the end of the project, each participating region or organisation will have a better evidence-based understanding of their offering for the young people and the actual impact of the activities organised. In the longer term this information can be used to steer services and financing to make the best out of the resources available for the sector.
The partnership wanted to achieve the following objectives - Pilot the Youth Card system in five EU countries; Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany and Portugal - Network with other organisations in the field of youth work and get them involved them in the Youth Card ecosystem - Create a Mobile Application to support all stakeholders and especially the youth in finding interesting activities - Create a Training Manual and Step by Step guide for youth workers and youth work organisations for using the Youth Card system - Give each participating region or organisation better evidence-based understanding of their offering for the young people and the actual impact of the activities organised
The idea of the project was to create a supporting tool to help bring together the organisations in the youth field, disseminate available services and activities to the youth, and collect statistical evidence that can be used to steer the funding to the activities that best reach the youth, in places where it is the most needed. In addition to this, the proposed tool was designed to include modern and innovative supporting mechanisms for activating youth, such as support for rewarding and gamification processes and targeted benefits, as well as possibility for young people to create their own Activity CVs, directly empowering them in finding inner strengths and assisting in job-seeking. Collecting statistical information of young people’s interest and actual participation in activities offered and feeding this information forward to tools used for auditing youth work also raises the level of professionality in the evaluation of the whole field of work. In short the addressed needs were Need to collect evidence-based statistical information about the youth work and its impact Need to make information about the activities and services offered for youth better available Need to foster networking between youth work organisations