Empowering youth workers and youth to promote fair trade through new forms of activism Erasmus Project

Project Title

Empowering youth workers and youth to promote fair trade through new forms of activism

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

The project was formed in the context of civic activism taking on new forms, especially in terms of how young people commit to different causes and participate in civic action. Youth participation is increasingly one-off activism, for example, through signing online petitions, or self-organisatory activities. The project focused on involving young people in transformative civic participation around fair global trade – a topic that is shared among young people across Europe through global brands and consumer goods and commercial messages.

The first objective of the project was to strengthen the capacity of the organisations involved to allow them to engage youth in an inclusive manner in an era of new activism. The second objective of the project was to increase the capabilities of young people to a) critically evaluate the commercial messages they are confronted with and to decipher the production chain of their everyday consumer goods and b) to be empowered to influence the way global production takes place in the world today, both through policy reform and through influencing companies directly.

In the project, a group of 24 young people aged 18-25 from Finland, Estonia and Latvia were chosen to learn civic participation skills and co-design the transnational meetings that were the key activity in the project. Three transnational meetings were planned and organised together with the youth. The youth experienced hands-on activities and learnt from external speakers on themes related to responsible consumption and fair global trade. In between national meetings, the partner organisations supported initiatives and activities planned and implemented by the youth to put into practice the skills they had acquired.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 55950 Eur

Project Coordinator

Eettisen kaupan puolesta ry & Country: FI

Project Partners

• MONDO MTU – NGO MONDO
• Zemes draugi