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Accredited project in the field of youth

2023-1-DE04-KA151-YOU-0001229222023Mobility of young people for accredited organisationsfinalized
Countries: DE · Grant: €62,216

Objectives

With the realisation of our project, we wanted to do some peace work in line with our mission statement and further expand and maintain our networks. Following the outbreak of war in the Ukraine, an important, long-standing partner left our network. The Russian partner was an integral part of our work for almost twenty years and always led to a great deal of empathy on both sides. As we had difficulties in recruiting German network partners and getting participants on the German side interested in our projects for some time, mainly due to coronavirus and other crises, it was particularly important to us to develop this area further. We can now report our first successes in this area. We will soon be able to increase the number of activities from two per project term to three, as originally formulated. Dealing with and raising awareness and the ability to act in the areas of climate change and inclusion are not only the two most important goals of our accreditation application, but also the strategic development goals of our quality management. Our Youth Education Officer (AdB) position is currently also characterised by our work in the specialist group focusing on racism and anti-semitism. In terms of content, we have focussed on intersectional links between current challenges and our goals during this project period. It is very important for us to emphasise that the topics are always selected in close consultation with the young people themselves. During the respective seminars, the topics for the subsequent periods are already identified, discussed and, where feasible, incorporated. The topics of the climate crisis and inclusive societies cannot be emphasised without context. As a result, there are always overlaps and intersectional connections that need to be interpreted and explained. We want to encourage young people to recognise connections and promote their self-efficacy so that they see themselves as responsible and self-confident individuals who are able and willing to work towards a pluralistic and sustainable society. In the past project period, the topics of European elections and human rights therefore emerged as cross-cutting issues for our accreditation objectives. As human rights were also very much read by the young people themselves as rights for young people and children, there was once again a strong sense of self-determination with regard to the organisation of the seminar during this period. An even greater awareness has crystallised that the young people themselves should play an active role in shaping the seminar. For example, time slots are specifically built in for skill-sharing. In addition, various methods such as the barcamp or open method workshops should not only enable participants to gain independent learning experience within a protected framework, but also to actively shape the content and form. To a certain extent, the seminar is therefore also in the hands of the participants themselves and the teamers increasingly see themselves as accompanying learning coaches. It was also important to focus on digital and technology-based methods as well as the use and handling of social media. These aspects are playing an increasingly natural role in the lives of young people and thus also within the youth seminars, so that we have been taking them into account more and more since the start of this project and using them in a targeted manner to address the realities of young people's lives. Once again, the relatively young pool of teamers we can draw on (20-25) proves to be an advantage here. The young teamers are characterised by their experience and diversity, which means that they also reflect the realities of the young people's lives to a certain extent (young, queer, from different European countries, etc.). This expanded concept for international youth work has proven to be very successful. In this context, it was also particularly important for us to sharpen our focus on the topics of gender-sensitive behaviour within the group and offering various safe space-like activities. Since the start of this project, an awareness person has been appointed for each face-to-face event who is available during the week as a contact person for any questions or criticism relating to the topic of (sexual) discrimination. The aim is to highlight lines of difference and to ensure that the seminar week is understood and experienced as a non-judgemental space.

Project partners (1)