The project is based on the topics of community mediation and participative policy-making processes. Community mediation is an approach to manage and transforms conflicts through fostering communities’ involvement within policy-making processes. The main aim of the project is to propose community mediation as a policy in youth work and in E+ Program. For this reason, a two-years long pilot project is proposed, where consortium members and local communities stakeholders are actively involved in the testing and implementing of community mediation approach within youth work. The specific objectives are: - to acquire the methodology of community mediation and apply it to improve and strengthen consortium’ capacity to intervene in local contexts- to foster the use of tools promoting youth active participation in the non profit sector, in volunteering and youth organizations- to enable youth NGOs to act as relevant stakeholders and potential ambassadors of motions of local community and young people- to test community mediation in the field of youth active participation and to share best practices and methodologies for its design, implementation and evaluation- to foster strategic cooperation between youth organizations in the education and training sectors through the exchange of best practices and the mixing of organizational patterns and ways of working- to increase youth organizations’ capabilities in the field of education and training through the tools provided by Erasmus+ Programme. The project foresees the following activities: a kick-off meeting, a TC in Europe, a TC in Latin America, a set ofstudy visits in Latin America and different EVS periods lasting 6 months each. Two final TCs will follow, one in Latin America and one in Europe.Participants will explore community mediation approach and understand how to apply it in local communities both during TCs and through EU youth workers’ study visits in Latin America, where community mediation approach has first developed.EVS volunteers, after a two-months training period within their sending organization, will further promote the implementation of community mediation approach in the local community where they will support the setting up of a community mediation event. Other outputs of the project are a website and a handbook on community mediation, that will contain project materials and experiences, together with research contributions, on community mediation and participatory decision-making processes.
CoMedY - Community Mediation for Youth is a project funded by the Erasmus+ Programme – Key Action 2, Capacity Building in the Field of Youth of the European Commission coordinated by P.E.CO. – Progetti Europei di Cooperazione and implemented between March 2016 and February 2018. CoMedY project stemmed from the encounter between Community Mediation practice and the experience in international youth work within non-formal educational contexts when we realized that they share some tools, methods, and possible scopes. For this reason, we proposed a pilot project based on three main topics to be developed and interconnected within different international activities: Community Mediation, non-formal education and youth active participation. By community mediation, we mean an approach that aims at preventing, managing and transforming conflicts by promoting local community involvement in decision-making processes through its empowerment which has never been applied before in European projects for international youth mobility. The countries involved in the project were Italy, Portugal, and Spain for Europe; Argentina, Mexico, and Peru for Latin-America. The method used during the project’s activities combined non-formal education techniques with training attended by representatives of partner organizations and local communities. We also think of the promotion of European Voluntary Service as a tool to enhance the connections between the diverse local contexts of the partner organizations. CoMedY project’s main goal was to experiment, develop, and promote Community Mediation approach in the field of youth work, particularly E+. During the drafting phase of the Project, we set the following objectives: ● Gaining knowledge and skills in Community Mediation methods, and learning how to apply them to improve and strengthen the effectiveness of interventions in local contexts; fostering the empowerment of the social groups the organizations are working with; strengthening the exchange with the local authorities; ● Fostering the use of tools and methods promoting youth active participation in the non- profit sector, in volunteering and youth organizations; ● Increasing the partner organizations’ effectiveness in advocacy capability, enabling youth NPOs to act as relevant stakeholders and potential ambassadors of the local communities and young people’ needs; ● Testing Community Mediation in the field of youth work and sharing best practices and methods for its design, implementation, and evaluation; ● Increasing potential youth involvement within their communities; ● Fostering strategic cooperation amongst youth organizations in the educational and training sectors through the exchange of best practices and the interconnection of organizational patterns and working practices and methods; ● Increasing the administrative, innovative, and international capabilities of youth organizations in the fields of education and training through the tools provided by the Erasmus+ Programme. Participants have been youth workers and coordinators of the partner organizations, and young volunteers. The first explored the Community Mediation methodology and tried to understand how to apply it in the different local contexts, both during the Training Courses and through study visits in Latin America. EVS volunteers underwent a preliminary period of volunteering in their respective sending organizations and local communities and received baseline training on Community Mediation approach in order to contribute to the implementation of a Community Mediation-inspired local project during their EVS period. During the project, a website was created (www.communitymediation.eu) where visitors can find materials on Community Mediation, EVS volunteers’ experiences, together with an handbook on Community Mediation. All materials are in English and Spanish.