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A practical approach to sustainable youth work

2022-1-BE05-KA153-YOU-0000558242022Mobility of youth workersfinalizedGood practice
Countries: BE|SI|GE|AM|EL|MK|TR|RS · Grant: €19,070
Environment and climate changeGreen skillsQuality and innovation of youth work

Objectives

The Consortium acknowledged the perceiving need of increasing the knowledge and resources of youth workers and youth organizations to successfully engage in sustainable youth work. Therefore, through increasing the quality work of our participating youth workers (them being a direct link with young people and specifically with disadvantaged youngsters), the project aimed to promote sustainable positive behaviors, attitudes and practices among the youngsters. The idea of the project resulted from two main concerns that YouthProAktiv members reported in our YPA General Assembly in November 2021: (1) a great disparity of green behaviors among youngsters across EU and neighboring countries with many countries still far from contributing positively to daily sustainable choices of its population, and (2) a lack of knowledge and resources of youth workers and youth organizations on how to practically transform their work and structures in an example of sustainability and greener choices. In line with the EU youth strategy goal number 10 of a sustainable green Europe, this project aimed to empower youth workers to act as agents of change for environmental and sustainable development. Hence, the project targeted diverse non-formal strategies and methodologies that would help participating youth workers to promote intercultural and cross-sectoral reflections, debates, and exchanges of best practices on the topics of sustainability, green travel, EU green policies, SDGs, dissemination plans, etc. Consequently, by implementing this project, the Consortium envisioned two main objectives: (1) to increase the knowledge and the practical competences of youth workers on sustainability issues and practices, and to (2) increase the sustainable and greener capacity of youth work, preparing youth organizations to better incorporate green policies and behaviors in their daily work as a positive example to the youngsters they work with. In order to increase the effectiveness of the project and a realistic approach of its content, the Consortium gave further detail to the main objectives through these goals: - Raising youth worker’s awareness on EU sustainable policies, funding and strategies to promote the capacity of youth work to contribute towards the goal of achieving the EU environment policy.. - To discover and experience practical tools (mobile applications, activities and methods) that can be used to ensure the sustainability of youth projects and youth work. - To develop new synergies and activities focused on sustainability and the development of sustainable positive behaviors, specially through the Erasmus+ KA1 action. - To increase youth worker’s understanding on how to specifically engage the disadvantaged youngsters they work with on sustainable positive behaviors.

Project partners (9)