Youth organizations play an important role in the development of young people. They act as informal pillars of education and have a significant impact on the individual and their choices, especially during adolescence. Through the programs and activities implemented by youth organizations, young people become relaxed, they open up and confide to youth workers about their problems and the challenges they face. At the YHO, we believe that poor health is one of the biggest barriers of young people to reaching their full potential, and poor health care often translates into serious illness in later stages of life. All this crucially affects the lives of young people. The last ten years have seen an increase in health conditions among adolescents - most notably mental and metabolic disorders. This is a group of diseases and medical conditions called non-communicable diseases, which affect the population the most in both the developed and developing world. They are a consequence of the chosen lifestyle and the main risk factors are completely preventable. The aim of the Youth(4)Health project is to improve the health of young people in the associated countries, to connect the youth sector more and to establish cross-sectoral links to establish a participatory model of policy-making in the fields of youth and health. In this way, we want to transfer the impact of the project from the youth sector alone to other areas and increase the possibilities for the participation of civil society, and especially young people, in the democratic processes of policy-making and adoption of policies. The goals of the project are to establish functioning youth coalitions for youth health, to train them for continued sustainable operation and long-term growth within the youth health sector, to train a critical mass of young people to become systematically engaged in health, to implement local health promotion initiatives and to achieve change within their own organizations. Achieving such goals requires a comprehensive approach, which we have divided into three parts: The first approach will be to connect youth organizations into national networks – youth coalitions for health. These networks will ensure coherence between organizations and enable a wider reach of project activities. They will also enable access to health topics to youth organizations that are not active in the health field. In addition, the coalitions will be able to act as a strong advocate for health and youth policies at the national level. Another approach will be to develop Quality Indicators for Health in youth organizations. These indicators will regulate systemic changes within youth organizations that will provide a healthier environment for their members and act synergistically with the initiatives of the Youth Health Ambassadors. The third tier of activities will be a training for youth health ambassadors and advocates. Through these trainings, the national youth organizations will gain a mass of young people - health ambassadors, who will know the effective approaches to ensure the health of young people and introduce them in their local/national environment through their own initiatives for promotion of a healthy lifestyle. Over 50 young leaders of different profiles, who will play very diverse roles in the project - some will be responsible for bringing organizations together and forming coalitions, others will be trainers or health ambassadors, and some will write guidelines. National youth organizations from three countries were selected for activities at national level: CLA from Turkey, MZPZ from Slovenia and VCS from North Macedonia. Young people will receive training and mentoring to ensure results and quality of work at national/international levels. They will be assisted by young professionals from the fields of health and youth work from international network of YHO, who will take on the role of trainers at the seminars and lead mentoring processes. Different methods of youth work will be used in the implementation of all the trainings, with a strong emphasis on practical implementation of the tasks. The expected results are: established 3 National Youth Coalitions for Health, 18 trained and qualified youth health ambassadors, at least 12 local health promotion initiatives implemented, 3 written national guidelines for healthy youth organizations, written guidelines for healthy international youth organizations, produced supporting documents and materials, which will be the basis for expansion of the project after its completion. Youth coalitions also have the potential to establish a participatory model of policy-making in cooperation with decision-makers in the fields of youth and health, thus increasing the opportunities for civil society, and especially young people, to participate in democratic policy-making and adoption processes.
The overall purpose of the Youth Health project was to improve the health of young people in the associated countries, to connect the youth sector more closely and to establish intersectoral links for the implementation of a participatory model of policy-making in the fields of youth and health. As a smaller goal, we also set ourselves to transfer the impact of the project from only the youth sector to other areas and to increase the possibilities of participation of civil society - especially young people - in the democratic processes of policy formulation and adoption. We wanted to establish functioning youth coalitions for youth health, train them for further sustainable operation and long-term growth within the youth health sector, train a critical mass of young people to start systematically dealing with health, implement local health promotion initiatives and achieve changes within their organizations. In addition to coalitions, we also wanted to establish "Guidelines for healthy youth organizations", which would regulate systemic changes within youth organizations, which will provide a healthier environment for their members and work synergistically with the initiatives of youth health ambassadors. In addition to the rest, we wanted to conduct trainings for youth health ambassadors and advocates - with these trainings, national youth organizations would get a mass of young people - health ambassadors who will know effective approaches to ensure youth health and implement them in their local/national environment. We wanted to achieve introductions through local initiatives promoting a healthy lifestyle, organized by young people themselves with topics that are most important to them and their local environment. An important goal was also regular and sufficiently detailed evaluation and analysis at the end, the purpose of which was the exchange of good practices and their transfer beyond the framework of partner organizations.
Youth organizations play an important role in the development and growth of young people, but at the same time, poor health is one of the biggest obstacles in reaching the potential of young people, and poor health care often translates into serious illnesses in later life periods. All of this has a key impact on the lives of young people throughout all periods of their lives. The data show that in the last ten years there has been a visible increase in health conditions among young people - especially mental and metabolic disorders. It is a group of diseases and medical conditions called chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which most affect the population in both the developed and the developing world. Because of their direct access to young people, youth organizations play a key role in addressing this social challenge. However, youth organizations are often not aware of their influence on young people and do not have enough knowledge, competences and skills to establish a suitable (safe) environment. According to these activities, we chose: as the main needs that we wanted to address. -Lack of advocacy and partnership/coalition skills -Lack of project management knowledge and skills. Most organizations manage projects, but due to the nature of youth/student organizations and the rapid turnover of members, they need them more knowledge -Great need for greater continuity of operations (which could potentially be provided by secretariats), but for which they need knowledge from more sustainable management of organizations.