Youth(4)Health Erasmus Project

Project Title

Youth(4)Health

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

Youth organizations play an important role in the development of young people. They act as informal pillars of education and have a significant impact on the individual and their choices, especially during adolescence. Through the programs and activities implemented by youth organizations, young people become relaxed, they open up and confide to youth workers about their problems and the challenges they face. At the YHO, we believe that poor health is one of the biggest barriers of young people to reaching their full potential, and poor health care often translates into serious illness in later stages of life. All this crucially affects the lives of young people. The last ten years have seen an increase in health conditions among adolescents – most notably mental and metabolic disorders. This is a group of diseases and medical conditions called non-communicable diseases, which affect the population the most in both the developed and developing world. They are a consequence of the chosen lifestyle and the main risk factors are completely preventable.

The aim of the Youth(4)Health project is to improve the health of young people in the associated countries, to connect the youth sector more and to establish cross-sectoral links to establish a participatory model of policy-making in the fields of youth and health. In this way, we want to transfer the impact of the project from the youth sector alone to other areas and increase the possibilities for the participation of civil society, and especially young people, in the democratic processes of policy-making and adoption of policies. The goals of the project are to establish functioning youth coalitions for youth health, to train them for continued sustainable operation and long-term growth within the youth health sector, to train a critical mass of young people to become systematically engaged in health, to implement local health promotion initiatives and to achieve change within their own organizations. Achieving such goals requires a comprehensive approach, which we have divided into three parts:

The first approach will be to connect youth organizations into national networks – youth coalitions for health. These networks will ensure coherence between organizations and enable a wider reach of project activities. They will also enable access to health topics to youth organizations that are not active in the health field. In addition, the coalitions will be able to act as a strong advocate for health and youth policies at the national level. Another approach will be to develop Quality Indicators for Health in youth organizations. These indicators will regulate systemic changes within youth organizations that will provide a healthier environment for their members and act synergistically with the initiatives of the Youth Health Ambassadors. The third tier of activities will be a training for youth health ambassadors and advocates. Through these trainings, the national youth organizations will gain a mass of young people – health ambassadors, who will know the effective approaches to ensure the health of young people and introduce them in their local/national environment through their own initiatives for promotion of a healthy lifestyle.

Over 50 young leaders of different profiles, who will play very diverse roles in the project – some will be responsible for bringing organizations together and forming coalitions, others will be trainers or health ambassadors, and some will write guidelines. National youth organizations from three countries were selected for activities at national level: CLA from Turkey, MZPZ from Slovenia and VCS from North Macedonia. Young people will receive training and mentoring to ensure results and quality of work at national/international levels. They will be assisted by young professionals from the fields of health and youth work from international network of YHO, who will take on the role of trainers at the seminars and lead mentoring processes. Different methods of youth work will be used in the implementation of all the trainings, with a strong emphasis on practical implementation of the tasks.

The expected results are: established 3 National Youth Coalitions for Health, 18 trained and qualified youth health ambassadors, at least 12 local health promotion initiatives implemented, 3 written national guidelines for healthy youth organizations, written guidelines for healthy international youth organizations, produced supporting documents and materials, which will be the basis for expansion of the project after its completion. Youth coalitions also have the potential to establish a participatory model of policy-making in cooperation with decision-makers in the fields of youth and health, thus increasing the opportunities for civil society, and especially young people, to participate in democratic policy-making and adoption processes.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 92355 Eur

Project Coordinator

MEDNARODNA ZVEZA ZA ZDRAVJE MLADIH – INTERNATIONAL YOUTH HEALTH ORGANIZATION & Country: SI

Project Partners

• Civil Life Association
• Mladinsko združenje za promocijo zdravja
• H.E.R.A. – Health Education and Research Association