Active participation of youth and their engagement is important challenge for Europe. European countries need active young people empowered by social media literacy and community media skills that will give chance them to reach positive impacts in local communities. Community media has a multiplying impact both in local and European levels. Because of this reason, European Union Member States cooperate to increase capacity of young poeple through active participation to society. Increasing media litearcy will help to build capacity of young people. Community media is include tools and networks that young people can use to transmit their voice with local media actions in the community to become more empowered. European Parliament described the importance of community media in Europe “as non-profit making and independent, not only from national, but also from local power, engaging primarily in activities of public and civil society interest, serving clearly defined objectives which always include social value and contribute to inter-cultural dialogue” (Resolution 2008/2011 INI). Young people's insufficient communication is an identified common problem in Europe, because they do not have enough necessary media literacy and skills to effective communication. Community media will encourage young people to develop their skills and increase their potential to turn into more integrated with public domain so that they will claim their rights better and remain actions to their social life better. Otherwise, young people will face risks of marginalization. They will effectively failing to sustain themselves as “learning individual” and therefore less likely to adapt in our era of social and economic critical points. Community media networks and tailored trainings are related with needs and expectations of young people and it will help them to participate in society, engage the public and contribute to a strong youth movement as a whole. Young people have limited access to media trainings or hands-on support activites in media tools. Lack of access to community media skills training effect young people and they are unable to give their messages to public. This issue limits young people's engagement in active participation processes to gain public support for their aims and viewpoints. The project's idea is to share educational approaches as youth community media models, exchange good practices in local, national and European levels and empower young people's active membership of local communities (municipalities,neighbourhoods, disadvantaged communities etc) and guide young people through a process, where they get to: 1. Gain socail media literacy and community media skills 2. Obtain entrepreneurship skills to establish their own media (such as local news website, newsletter creation for local communities, blogs etc.). The project aims to develop and assure young volunteers' community media into civil society. The project will design and implement community media approaches and tools to create grassroot community development transfer to young volunteers. Other innovative element is the utilization of a "self organizing" approach in the project aiming towards "youth volunteers community media". This youth approach to community media is not very common when compared to community media in general. Creation of community media networks and tailored trainings are related with needs and expectations of young volunteers and it will help them to participate in society, engage the public and contribute to a strong youth movement as a whole. The project aims to accord recent media literacy strategies implemented in project partner countries, so as to improvement access to social media and community trainings hands-on actions. The project aims to increase access to community media skills training to able young volunteers' message to wider audience. There are 5 intellectual outputs in the project. These are: IO1: Community media training scheme IO2: Community media volunteering training toolkit IO3: Community media youth volunteering e-learning platform IO4: Community media youth volunteering animation videos IO5: Self assessment mobile application on community media youth volunteering The project is targeting socially disadvantaged youth due to being located in areas with huge unemployment rates, and these include youth from poor families, minorities; youth workers from different types of organizations; young people who are interested in social media and community media as volunteers. Project partners are foundation, education volunteering youth association and training association of disadvantaged young people those have experience on youth work and non-formal education. Partners are active in community media in their country with their youth workers, media editors. Scope and scale of the project will be specific to young volunteers.
The CM VOLUNTEERING project aimed to develop and assure young people's community media into civil society. The project designed and implemented community media approaches and tools to create grassroots community development transfer to young volunteers. Another innovative element was utilising a "self-organizing" approach in the project aiming toward "youth volunteers community media". This youth approach to community media is not very common compared to community media in general. The creation of community media networks and tailored training were related to the needs and expectations of young volunteers. It helped them to participate in society, engage the public and contribute to a strong youth movement as a whole. The CM VOLUNTEERING project aimed to accord media literacy strategies in Austria and Turkey to improve access to social media and community training hands-on actions. The CM VOLUNTEERING project aimed to increase access to community media skills training to able young volunteers' messages to a wider audience. The project partners had relevant skills and similar activities or projects in the past. The CM VOLUNTEERING project aimed to be complementary and extension of previous work carried out by project partners. Partners were active in community media in their country with their youth workers and editors.
Active participation of youth and their engagement is an important challenge for Europe. European countries need active young volunteers empowered by social media literacy and community media skills that will allow them to reach positive impacts in local communities. Community media has a multiplying impact both at local and European levels. Because of this reason, European Union Member States cooperate to increase the capacity of young people through active participation in society. Increasing social media literacy and community media will help to build the capacity of young people. Community media includes tools and networks that young people can use to transmit their voice with local heard media actions in the community to become more empowered. The European Parliament described the importance of community media in Europe “as non-profit making and independent, not only from national but also from the local power, engaging primarily in activities of public and civil society interest, serving clearly defined objectives which always include social value and contribute to inter-cultural dialogue” (Resolution 2008/2011 INI). The European Parliament advised member states to formally identify community media as a diverse group alongside commercial and public media. It called on the Commission to "take into account community media as an alternative, bottom-up solution for increasing media pluralism when designing indicators for media pluralism.”. To reach this aim, succeeding youth media capacity increase in Europe, training programmes, partnerships and networks among organizations that work with/for youth such as community media voluntary organizations, training and intercultural education organizations, educational networks, NGOs etc. Young people's insufficient communication is an identified common problem in Europe because they do not have enough necessary media literacy and skills for effective communication. During the CM VOLUNTEERING project, we encouraged young people to develop their skills and increase their potential to turn more integrated with the public domain so that they claimed their rights better and remained actions in their social life better. In this way, we eliminated the potential risks of marginalization for young people through failing to sustain themselves as “learning individuals” and, therefore, less likely to adapt in our era of social and economical critical points. Inside the CM VOLUNTEERING project, training activities were related to the needs and expectations of young people, and it helped them to participate in society, engage the public and contribute to a strong youth movement as a whole. Young volunteers had limited access to media training or hands-on support activites in media tools. Lack of access to community media skills training was solved in the CM VOLUNTEERING project activities, and they could give their messages to the public. The project boosts young people's engagement as volunteers in active participation processes to gain public support for their aims and viewpoints. The project's idea was to share educational approaches as youth volunteers community media models, exchange good practices at local, national and European levels and empower young people's active membership in local communities (municipalities, neighbourhoods, disadvantaged communities etc.). The project team guided young people through a process where they got to: 1. Gain social media literacy and community media skills 2. Obtain entrepreneurship skills to establish their media (such as local news websites, newsletter creation for local communities, blogs etc.).