1) Empowerment of youth from vulnerable groups The project sought to empower vulnerable youth and to build bridges between them, the majority youth and institutions (schools, municipalities, NGOs). It also aimed at diverse youth capacity building to encourage their participation. Diverse young people were to also benefit from participatory experiences of NGOs from other EU MS (members of YES Forum network). 2) Inclusion of youth from vulnerable groups Working together in the action group aimed to enable diverse young people to find common ground and strengthen their voice. Connecting youth from minorities with institutions was to improve their engagement and trust and help change institutional processes towards inclusion of vulnerable groups thanks to the draft youth strategy. 3) Increasing participation of youth from vulnerable groups in community activities and policy making We aimed to provide mentoring for a group of minority youth to develop their skills and capacities for participation and to connect action group with organisations they may encounter in their future participatory activities. We intended to arrange meetings with relevant institutions (NGOs, donors) that might provide insight into participation.
In Slovakia, participation of young people and specifically young people from minorities and vulnerable groups is still under-developed. Young people are often viewed as immature to take part in decision-making processes and civic activities. Up to 70% of youth think their voice is not heard in society and 90% think they should have a say. Our long-standing expertise in the topic of engaging vulnerable groups has led us to believe that we need to start addressing this topic as well, because being a full-fledged member of society means you have a voice in it which is not the case for minorities. This is even more true for young people from minorities. In Slovakia, however, there was no data on the needs, views and real opportunities of young people from minorities in terms of civic engagement and participation. At the same time, local governments have not yet addressed the youth participation and young people from minorities have had virtually no opportunities to acquire skills for their civic engagement. We wanted to fill these gaps with a project that focused on identifying the needs of youth from minorities, strengthening their civic engagement, and supporting municipalities for the inclusion of youth from minorities.