CONTEXT AND NEED Over 26 million - almost 29% of the 90 million young people aged 15-29 in the EU - are at risk of poverty and social exclusion when rated on the AROPE (at risk of poverty or exclusion) scale. These young people desperately need high quality, accessible opportunities to participate in, and contribute to, their communities. Partners from Belgium, PT, UK, Italy, Spain, France and Romania will be collaborating on working with Innovation Intelligence and Fundraising as an innovative and engaging tool to promote youth participation. Through enhancing the capability and the skills of the youth workers and of young people in the domain of innovation intelligence and fundraising, this project has the long term obective to give young people a chance to increase their commitment and participation to civil society life. OBJECTIVES AND METHODS The project will produce - with elements co-created and tested with 60 young people (15 per partner): - a Toolkit for youth workers, youth organizations and young people, useful in general to all those who want to take part in a fundraising activity and to be involved in a process to increase organizational intelligence in the sense of innovation - a -coaching set and a knowledge community - a training camp for young people from each partner. The camp will focus on co-creating with the young people elements of the toolkit and coaching sets. - an evaluation framework to assess the impact of takeover days using participatory methods INNOVATION The project provides youth workers in BE, ES, PT, UK, RO with new ways of using informal learning to encourage the participation of young people, to help youth workers and young people to increase their participation and their commitment to the Youth Environment
The initial objective of the project is to support youth organizations (including informal groups active in the youth environment) to acquire a set of competencies through the development and testing of new ideas and tools aimed at the growth of economic resources that enable target groups to be involved and/or participate actively in society and contribute to the development of youth communities and social cohesion. Empowering young people, promoting youth participation and solidarity, promoting awareness of the development potential of youth work and youth organizations, and developing their capacities/skills through the creation of dynamic training packages for informal learning with a focus on fund-raising. The aim is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of youth organizations in terms of their ability to organize themselves in fundraising and, thus, contribute to self-sustainability and support of the youth environment and their ecosystem. The target groups are youth workers, informal youth groups, and young people.
The project was designed to limit the negative effects of cuts in resources and services for young people implemented at the local level by national governments. These cuts, together with the short-sightedness of local legislators at the national level and the lack of investment in young people, have reduced the opportunities for young people to support youth organisations themselves, including informal youth groups, resulting in less and less active participation of young people in civil society and in the processes of growth and empowerment and education. Youth organisations, such as charities and voluntary groups, may boast creativity and human resources but in terms of budget autonomy, they have very narrow margins. FUND YOU was created to experiment and test new ideas to grow the economic resources of organisations in an intelligent and creative way. Youth organisations, including informal youth groups, need to be able to acquire new skills, smart and functional methodologies to fundraise and contribute to the sustenance of their organisational spaces.