Youth Councils - advisors or activists is the project in consortium of Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic and Estonia which aims to provide young people with equal opportunities and experience which enable them to develop the competencies to play a full part in all aspects of society through expressing their needs, interests and visions. We want to raise the capacity of Youth Councils and empower them. The milestone which we are targeting to reach the aim we set is the reinforcement of the cooperation across the sectors involved in youth field (public bodies - local municipalities, active youth non-governmental organizations and Youth Councils). The main aim and range of the further objectives will be reached in the frame of the 12 stages which are going to be implemented during the 22 months. The frame contain 7 international activities (3 administrative meetings and 4 learning mobilities) as well as 5 local activities. Whole project will be implemented with the usage of the Non Formal Education and especially experiential learning principles. During the activities a range of methods will be used prioritizing participatory approach. Developing new strategies and specific action plans will be directly targeting the local level. The cross-sectoral cooperation intends to increase the possibilities and outcomes to be shared on the national level. Also, the project intends to develop the follow-up projects concerning youth participation and cross-sectoral cooperation on the INTERNATIONAL LEVEL, which will definitely increase the awareness of the topic and ameliorate the democratic processes across the REGIONS and EUROPE. That why the project is a kind of space for building cooperation network between partner organisations, decision-makers and youth.It’s important to add that number of participants of local activities will reach over 1500 people in total. Number of participants of international meetings and mobilities will be 179 participants. The project idea and the way of its implementation was developed in order to give a chance + all requied support to establish and enhance the cooperation in the triangle of Youth Councils, NGOs and Municipalities. We believe, that the results which will be achieved during the project will convince all mentioned target groups to intensify their activities related with youth civic participation. The project results will impact not only its direct participants, but also every person or institution that will take part in activities conducted during the project: schools, universities, city councils, and everyone interested.
Youth participation requires involvement, inclusion and cooperation between various sectors such as governmental bodies, non-governmental organizations, youth itself and even the private sector. But unfortunately in post-Soviet countries, it is very difficult for young people to actively act, especially in the field of youth councils. The European experience is a way for non-EU countries to be more open to European values, learn the best practices and, on this basis, build their democratic activities at a qualitatively new level.The main aim of the project “Youth Councils - advisors or activists” was to provide young people with equal opportunities and experience which enable them to develop the competencies to play a full part in all aspects of society through expressing their needs, interests and visions. With our project, we helped them to raise the capacity of Youth Councils and to empower them through cooperation across the sectors involved in the youth field (public bodies - local municipalities, active youth non-governmental organizations and Youth Councils). The main aim had been achieved through concrete objectives:- raising the transparency of Youth Councils- raising the visibility and importance of Youth Council among youth- raising the civil and political participation of youth through Youth Councils- creating space for sharing knowledge and exchanging experiences, know-how and good practices in the field of participation and youth active citizenship;- creating space for building international partnership and planning future projects in the field of youth involvement in decision-making;- finding new strategies and inspiration on creating and supporting local youth initiatives;- learning new approaches and finding an innovative ways of communication between youth and local municipalities politicians/experts/- discovering the opportunities under structural dialogue- creating opportunities for starting long-term international cooperation (EU and Partner countries) in the field of youth participation and structural dialogue projects.During the project, youth organisations and youth workers were mainly focused on building a structured dialogue with decision-makers and public bodies. In order to create space for it, local activities, conferences and round tables with decision-makers and public bodies representatives were organised. But a big part of building that dialogue and raising the capacity of youth were done via exchanging knowledge, experience, good practices and know-how with other youth organisations. It’s important to add, that whole main idea of the project was related with capacity building of the partner organisations (through cross-sectoral cooperation, organisation of international and local events, training staff and other core members and also attracting and training of potential future members of the NGO through the activities with youth councils and the youth interested in the civic participation. Additionally, the project has increased the competencies of the youth workers and capacities of the organizations from different sectors working in the youth field, affirmed equity, active citizenship and stimulated replicating more international projects. Therefore, there will be an increased number of learning mobility opportunities for young people, or people involved in youth work.Our cross-sectoral and cross-national cooperation fostered quality improvement in Youth Council’s work on local, national and international levels, it also increased the recognition of non-formal and informal learning.The project also contributed in enhancing the international dimension of youth activities and the role of youth workers and organizations to support young people.