Cease Cowering: Youth Empower Action Here! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Cease Cowering: Youth Empower Action Here!

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

In times of financial crises and increasing youth unemployment, alternative solutions to achieve progress and development are more than essential. The youth remain one of the most vulnerable groups in these turbulent times and therefore, the current EU-YOUTH strategy by the European Commission has recognized the needs to provide more and equal opportunities for young people in education and in the job market and to encourage young people to actively participate in society. The idea behind the Cease Cowering: Youth Empower Action Here (CC: YEAH!) project led by Mladiinfo International and its partners: Mladiinfo Slovakia The Global Experience and Iversity.org, was to create sustainability through youth empowerment and to transform youth into active citizens, well-educated and with well-developed skills and tools to contribute to the labor market and move the society forward.

The idea behind the CC: YEAH! project lies exactly in providing a program that will strength the capacities of young people to locate, exploit and transfer the knowledge and skills that are available online in the sphere of education and work, and in that way to make an example of how young people can grow into active citizens and change-makers in their societies. The very implementation of the project which strives at providing the first on-line MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) course in the field of youth empowerment and building youth capacities as well as a handbook, presents a unique material of this type. Whilst most of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are focused on enhancing the knowledge on particular formal education topic and are moreover one-way oriented, Mladiinfo International attempted to actively include the youth and provide a two-way communication through the web-platform, as well as to provide guidance and not only teaching material but also a concrete actions plans and consultancies.

Moreover, the priorities addressed by the project are: supporting the production and adoption of OER in diverse European languages, as well as promoting the professional development of staff and youth workers in ICT methodologies. In accordance with the priorities defined in the ERASMUS + Programme Guide, the project was expected to enhance the quality and relevance of education, training and youth work, to increase the entrepreneurship, languages and digital skills of youth, to develop critical thinking by using ICT, OER and virtual mobility, as well as to level up the management and coordination between the three Mladiinfo Network members. A kick off meeting, where 4 participants (1 from each organization) gathered and defined the forthcoming activities took place in Germany. The long-term youth worker mobility was foreseen as one of the crucial project actions, where 2 youth workers from M! International came to the office of M! Slovensko in Mlynska Dolina, Bratislava, and jointly worked with their 2 Slovak colleagues on the content of the MOOC course and the handbook with title “Discover Yourself: Build a Career and Make an Impact”. The project results were evaluated online.

The project target was to reach minimum 100,000 youth globally that will become aware about the required skills and competencies needed for youth career development and where minimum 1000 youth globally will get the chance to have their soft, entrepreneurial and digital skills increased through non-formal online education opportunities. The course itself had more than 1300 participants and it was widely promoted on the web-pages and social media of participating organizations.

Last but not least, the project CC: YEAH! is a starting point for strategic mutual response on youth unemployment and youth exclusion in the region of South-East and Central Europe and broader, including the EU member-states, and the non-EU countries. It was a bottom-up process that initiated strong youth partnerships in the field of education and acted as generator on future ideas and activities that use the youth enthusiasm and empower young people for action all around the globe.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 32490 Eur

Project Coordinator

ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATION MLADIINFO INTERNATIONAL & Country: MK

Project Partners

• IVERSITY GMBH
• The Global Experience
• MLADIINFO SLOVENSKO