“Level Up” Training Course gathered 26 youth workers from 11 countries for 9 days (travel day included) in Nicolosi, Italy to tackling the challenges posed today by a disaffection young people are feeling towards politics in general, and specifically towards active participation and citizenship, attracted by radicalised and extremist groups and their destructive tendencies rather than a constructive dialogue. This training course aims at empowering youth workers to be able to explain, and involve, young people in politics and specifically in policy-making, equipping them with hands-on skills, democratic attitudes and knowledge of political processes in order to foster the development of the ninth competence on political awareness. This project aimed at tackling the following issues: 1) The increasing attraction young people today feel towards radicalised and extremist groups. 2) Passiveness of youth when it comes to local, national and European politics and lack of concrete knowledge on these processes 3) The growing impact on young people of fake news, disinformation and hate speech Our aim was to equip participants with: • Non formal methods to introduce political competence to locally work with young people • Know-how on policy creation, development, advocacy and implementation • Developing an understanding of the scenario in today’s Europe and how it affects young people and youth workers, and the link to human rights, specifically right to active participation. • By developing competences in public communication, and establishing structured dialogue with relevant authorities. • By enabling and empowering youth organisations to create their own policies and offer them to the public. AIM - To increase the awareness of youth workers and young people and equip them with tools to construct an enabling environment for youth workers and youth organisations to take part in political decision-making and problem-solving processes. OBJECTIVES - 1) To create a common definition and understanding of what politics is and how it functions in a modern democracy. 2) To foster the connection between active participation and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights 3) To understand what policies are and how they are created, and what are the processes and mechanisms implied, and learn about existing tools like Structured Dialogue and Co-Management applied to youth policies. 4) To learn about advocacy and communication in the world of politics and governance 5) To discover how politics function at European level, the importance of networking with other societal sectors 6) To plan local actions where youth organisations and youth workers get involved with local/national decision-making bodies, by designing a youth policy amendment, propose.