Since 2019, the cities of Dortmund and Cluj have been in close exchange on the economic and political level. On the civil society level, however, there is a gap that we want to fill with this project, among others. Both cities face similar transformation challenges, with the corresponding implications for the people. At the same time, both Cluj and Dortmund have non-formal education spaces that are implemented by different actors, with different professions. The aim of the project was to visit these good practice approaches in order to get a better understanding of the challenges and the approaches of the partners in the context of policy learning. In addition, the project also aimed to initiate new collaborations and strengthen the transfer of knowledge and experience. This was very successful in the course of the project. The participants agreed to apply for a follow-up project in order to consolidate the exchange and strengthen the cooperation.
The pandemic has exacerbated the situation, especially for young people in difficult life situations. To ensure that these young people do not become the long-term losers of the pandemic, innovative non-formal learning and educational spaces must be created at the community level, where young people can experience their own skills and competencies and learn with and from each other in physical encounters. While multi-actor approaches have long been pursued in business and development cooperation, youth work has been rather hesitant. Even before the pandemic, it was clear how useful it is for different professions to work together synergistically in youth work. However, this also means that there must be a reconfiguration of the existing offers, in which different actors with different content-related and professional focuses and objectives are involved in the development and operationalization of the educational venues. The BAG KJS and Cluster of Education developed the project to visit examples of good practice, to exchange ideas and to identify success factors for multi-actor approaches.