The young people in the EaP region during the last 20 years had a lot of influence and strive for changes in the political situation and changes in society. Youth movements and young people themselves took an active role promoting the ideas they supported and protested against a situation where they were not happy. Youth will take a vital role in the development of the civil society and will take an active part in changing their societies through the most powerful activity that can bring representation of youth voice to the decision makers. The youth sector is a cross-sectoral field, thereby demanding a comprehensive and evidence-based approach to ensure a more thorough integration of young people's priorities in public policies that impact them. A variety of issues can have a particular impact on the young – not just in traditional “youth” areas like education and employment, but in broader fields such as climate change, gender equality, inclusion, pension reform, which will impact heavily on future generations. At the European level, Structured Dialogue became a mechanism, that every country uses like a valuable driver for the socio-economical progress when in the Eastern Partnership countries, youth participation in decision-making process still looks like an unusual activity. The main aim of the project is to build the capacity of national, regional and local youth councils through developing innovative and collaborative practices between youth organizations, young people and decision making bodies.Specifically, these activities will be based on insights collection methodologies and evidence--based approaches to the policy making processes.Through the project's lifetime we have adapted activities that will train the participants for a common understanding of structured dialogue, and align everyone to the same concept. As well the projects contain a stage on collecting valuable insights from youth by research on representative samples through surveys, data collection and other consultation tools to get to know the real and actual youth needs and issues.All these information will be disseminated through a seminar will all the participants to develop evidence-based recommendations and to present them to decision makers through national events in each country, involving representatives of: youth ministries, youth councils, youth workers, youth researchers, youth organizations and young people from all backgrounds to facilitate the dialogue with decision makers.The output of the project and process documentation will be gathered in the local reports and a global report presenting the outcomes, and goals achieved through this activity, as well with the design of know-how toolkits and guides which will be introduced in the last large scale to ensure knowledge durability and enable youth councils to run continuously structured dialogues by the end of the project.
ABOUT THE PROJECTThe main aim of the project is to build the capacity of national, regional and local youth councils through developing innovative and collaborative practices between youth organization, young people and decision-making bodies.Specifically, these activities will be based on insights collection methodologies and evidence-based approaches for the policy-making processes.THE OBJECTIVES Specifically, these activities will be based on insights collection methodologies and evidence-based approaches for the policymaking processes.1.To train and prepare local, regional and national youth councils participants from each country involved through the mobility and capacity building project activities in insights collection capacity building.2.To collect valuable insights from youth by researching on representative samples through surveys, data collection and other consultation tools to get to know the real and actual youth needs and issues.3.To develop evidence-based recommendations and to present them to decision-makers through a capacity building seminar and local conferences involving representatives of: youth ministries, youth councils, youth workers, youth research, youth organizations and young people from all backgrounds to facilitate the dialogue with decision-makers.4.To create global and local reports and design know-how toolkits and guides to be presented in the last large-scale youth event to ensure knowledge durability and enable youth councils to run continuously structured dialogues by the end of the project.When it comes to the project activities, the project was implemented at 2 levels, at the international level and national level.1.1.1.1 Training Course in ArmeniaIt was a learning space where participants go beyond and deeper in the topic of structured dialogue, length of the event was hosted by Armenian Progressive Youth, where the EaP countries participated with the objective to align all the participants on the same concept and to prepare them uniformly for the methodology in evidence-based methodology. 1.1.2.1 Fellowship on youth participation in SloveniaFellowship on youth participation was a capacity building activity where we bring together EaP issues and EU expertise. The activity was hosted by the National Youth Council of Slovenia which helped us to develop better approaches and innovative initiatives to communicate with decision makers more effectively. 2.1.1.1 Training course on Insights Collection in LithuaniaThis training course hosted by the Institute for Policy and Research of Lithuania during 10 days, and brought the breakdown of the evidence-based methodology through applicable and reliable tools, knowledge on how to collect the insights and bring representative samples to it.2.1.2.1 Insights Collection LocallyThis particular activity aims to participant countries to execute the insights collection applying the previous agreements and methodology developed in previous activities.2.2.1.1 Seminar on recommendations in RomanianDissemination process where the insights collected brought together to analyse the possible recommendations in a based-evidence frame, taking good case practices from countries that already worked with these characteristics. 3.1.1.1 National EventsIn the local activities each project partner had implemented its own thematic activities taking in consideration their national needs and priorities. 3.2.1.1 Reports gathering from partner organizationsNational reports collection and creation of comparable global report, etc.3.2.1.2 Working group on guide developmentWorking group on the evidence-based recommendation developed by all the participants of the project. 3.2.2.1 Closing conference with global and local reports presentation.