The project promotes youth participation by exchanging youth work practices and educational resources focused on developing young people’s participation knowledge, skills and competencies. The project aims to improve the quality of youth work in Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia and Germany and – through dissemination of its results in Europe and neighboring countries – in the field of support and promotion of youth participation, and to foster cooperation and exchanges between youth organizations from. The aim of the project will be reached through the following specific objectives: - to promote quality of youth work and non-formal education in the field of youth participation and bring new perspectives/approaches in the partners’ (and wider professional community) activity through good practices exchange; - to promote innovations in the work of partners and other youth workers and educators through working out the training course and the manual; - to raise recognition of youth work and non-formal education through organizing international events with local public and regional stakeholders, demonstrating that the partners act in the wider European context and through publications; - to support the partners and their work of promoting youth participation as an important aspect of democratic societies in Eastern Partnership countries; - to establish a partnership for further international youth exchanges, including ones in the field of youth participation. The special focuses of the practices to be examined, shared and disseminate are: - Support youth participation in vulnerable groups as realisation and promotion of Human Rights; - Involving young people in participatory urban development; - Youth participation in International Voluntary Service projects; - New tools of non-formal citizenship education as a way to promote youth participation. The activities from the project will launch, share, test and implement youth work practices, methods & tools and training modules, more precisely: - good practices of youth work towards empowering young people to participate actively in their communities will be done through 3 study-visits to partner organisations (totally for 48 participants). The study visits will include both - theoretical part introduction to the topic and specifics of the organisation’s activity in the field of youth participation (support youth participation through urban spaces; human rights and participation of young representatives of vulnerable groups; participation through volunteering), and sharing practical experience through the field visits and methodological workshops; - non-formal learning methods and OERs (a manual for youth workers and training course will be developed and distributed) on civic participation. The training for 22 youth leaders, which will be designed by all partners and on the base of the exchange of good practices, will be an innovative outcome of the project. The manual with analytic description of al partners’ practices and approaches as well as the concept, methodology and further notes, based on evaluation of the pilot version of the training course, will be a tool for wider professional audience to support their activity in field of youth participation and to develop quality and innovations in their work. Reflection on good practices, working on the concept of manual and the training course will help partners to switch from the level of sharing and reflecting the level of joint creative result-oriented work. Thus, a synergetic effect will let to produce a new educational tool, which will enrich the practices of all partners. The manual also will help the participating organization in terms of recognition of their work. The training course will directly promote the engagement of young people, empower them through developing relevant competencies and widen their vision on their participation as well as connect youth leaders from four countries. Further, the project will promote youth participation by allowing partner organizations to internationalize their expertise on the promotion of youth participation gained in previous projects and programs. Moreover, through the new methods and tools developed the organizations will provide new services to young people, enhance their collaboration with relevant stakeholders and increase their sustainability. Nevertheless, the project encourages cooperation, networking and exchanges of practices among youth organizations from Germany, Estonia, Ukraine and Georgia. The dissemination activities are designed and planned so that they will promote youth participation, best practices in the field, and the specific outputs developed in the project.
The objectives of the project were the following: - to promote quality of youth work and non-formal education in the field of youth participation and bring new perspectives/approaches in the partners’ (and wider professional community) activity through good practices exchange; - to promote innovations in the work of partners and other youth workers and educators; - to raise recognition of youth work and non-formal education through organizing international events with local public and regional stakeholders, demonstrating that the partners act in a wider European context and through publications; - to support the partners and their work of promoting youth participation as an important aspect of democratic societies in Eastern Partnership countries; - to establish partnerships for further international youth exchanges, including ones in the field of youth participation.
Youth participation and its support through non-formal education was one of the priorities and objective points of all the project partners. They were working with specific fields of youth participation and have rich experience and expertise. On the other hand, they did it mostly on their local/regional levels and hadn´t got much opportunities to reflect on their experiences, to share it and to enrich it with new aspects, which other partners used. Thus, the project addressed the following needs of the partners: - to promote the quality of their work in the field of youth participation through exchange experiences and reflection on them; - to enrich the approaches and range of tools of the partners through learning them from each other; - to come up to the international level in working with this topic and to establish reliable partnerships for further international youth projects; - to raise recognition of the partners’ work and its visibility.