Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has” - Margaret Mead As members of the Youth Peace Ambassadors (YPAN), we recently participated in several projects on bi-community work, among others, in Cyprus and Kosovo, where we have proven the complexities and hostility towards "the others". We have also mapped, through interviews with reference actors, network members and participants of our international courses, the most detectable problems for young people in European societies at the local level. The 4 most frequent responses: Lack of integration of youth in political decision-making processes, the disaffection of young people by public affairs, polarization and radicalization, lack of opportunities for work and personal development. The objective of the project is to empower young people to become leaders in the search for sustainable and peaceful solutions to social problems by equipping them with skills to establish a "Youth Meeting Movement" based on social responsibility, integration and Participatory democracy understood as a complement and useful tool for representative institutions at the local level. The direct objectives of the project are: Increase social capital and youth participation in public affairs in local European communities with a democratic perspective. Develop the participants' understanding of community building processes, as well as their skills in the management and facilitation of these processes; Design and test the formula of "youth meetings" understood as a structured and directed meetings. Design and disseminate the innovative tool "Guide to Good Practices for the Formation of Youth Communities" based on research that ensures a sustainable and scalable impact to other communities and organizations; Create a proven European reference, with an online presence, quality documentary support, a group of specialized facilitators and a manifesto with accessions of civil society organizations that value European efforts in youth; Value the tools of participatory democracy for local administration politicians as an articulating mechanism for communication with young people. There will be several project target groups that will be divided between direct participants, community youth leaders, facilitators of social dynamics that will be trained and will participate in all lines of action throughout the duration of the project. The indirect target groups will be local and international youth, as well as associations. Through an ambitious communication campaign, we intend to disseminate the results and give them sustainability and recognition by relevant actors and public institutions. The expected results are: Intellectual production - "The Guide to Good Practices for Community Formation" - the guide for organizing community meetings; Creation of a bag of community leaders committed to collective impact to strengthen social cohesion in their communities; 21 community meetings in 7 European countries; Strengthening cooperation between youth organizations throughout Europe and with institutions. Throughout the project, we will use non-formal education methods that guarantee the acquisition of skills of the young people involved in the project. The activities planned through the project are: A transnational meeting for planning; Creation of the intellectual product: the Training Guide; two trainings on facilitation skills and sustainability of community building; two online seminars on peaceful activism tools, communication skills and activity evaluation; 21 community meetings in 7 European countries. Multilevel communication campaign and with various target audiences. The expected impact will be more inclusive local societies with young people, an integration based on the diversity of people's voices and the empowerment of local youth. A facilitation guide that will increase the knowledge of youth organizations on how to include large groups of young people in decision-making processes. The long-term benefits of the project would be the creation of the "Youth Meetings Movement", which will grow and reach the next communities in Europe and beyond.
Our main goal was to raise awareness about direct democracy as a complementary tool for indirect democracy institutions and to develop the methodology for community building and youth participation. At the same time, we created the youth meetings movement, an online campaign of communication and a network of collaborators (external partners and institutions) and a well-trained group of young facilitators for participatory meetings. The direct objectives of the project were: To Increase social capital and the participation of young people in public affairs in European local communities with a democratic perspective. Develop participants' understanding of community building processes, as well as their skills in managing and facilitating these processes; Design and test the formula of "youth meetings" understood as a structured and directed meeting with objectives and with the search for consensus as a tool that stimulates the negotiation. Design and disseminate the innovative tool "Guide to Good Practices for the Formation of Youth Communities" based on research that ensures a sustainable and scalable impact to other communities and organizations; Create a proven European reference, with an online presence, quality documentary support, a group of specialized facilitators and a manifesto with support from civil society organizations that puts Europe on the existing global map of similar experiences; Value the tools of participatory democracy for local administration politicians as an articulating mechanism for communication with young people.
There are populist movements that spread hate and intolerance by demonizing vulnerable minorities. The independent judiciary, free media and civic groups are being weakened and so is the preservation of human rights and the rule of law. We can see that even the world's established democracies have been vulnerable to this demagoguery and manipulation. Further, the Covid-19 pandemic followed by the financial crisis impacted in the confidence of the communities, affecting the youth and banning social constructions that, before, we were taking for granted. As members of the Youth Peace Ambassadors (YPAN), we participated in several projects on bi-community work, among others in Cyprus and Kosovo, where we have seen the complexities and hostility towards "the others". We mapped, through interviews with key players, network members, European organizations and participants in our international courses, the most detectable problems for young people in European societies at the local level. The 4 most frequent answers: Lack of integration of youth in political decision-making processes, disaffection of young people with public affairs, polarization and radicalization, lack of opportunities for professional and personal development. The Youth Meetings Movement project (YMM) tackled most of the needs expressed by the European youth as important and urgent to tackle. We provided respectful spaces lead by a young person (a participant) where community could gather and discuss the situation of their local and regional realities. We further enhaced this witht the opportunity of creating a network of young people where they could also gather and express their learning moments, improvements and shares of best-practices. Further on the needs addressed, we enhaced the collaboration between the collaborating entities, who on the meantime of the project gathered to propose new projects around the European needs and values (including post-covid youth projects and the 2022 Year of the Youth projects). We elaborated in the need for networking, common work and association best-practises sharing in order to take advantage of this opportunity. In the outputs results there is further information about what has been gained. Finally, the results and outputs of this project were disseminated and sent to a diverse set of stakeholders (as stated in follow questions of this report) and we got very good feedback, and a request to provide further spaces such as the ones created for and by the project.