Young Animal Advocates – Training for Young Trainers in the Mediation of Agricultural Issues and Ethical Consumption Patterns Erasmus Project

Project Title

Young Animal Advocates – Training for Young Trainers in the Mediation of Agricultural Issues and Ethical Consumption Patterns

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: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

In general, children and youth care very deeply about the well-being of animals and develop a strong relationship towards them. At the same time young people witness animal welfare issues in agriculture and entertainment industries. This is where the interest of young activists and the European Commission meet for the EU Strategy for Protection and Welfare of animals 2012 – 2015 also sees animal welfare severely compromised in the EU and consumer information and education one of the most effective means to alleviate the issue. However, such information dissemination targeting youth has been largely lacking in Eastern European countries or taken over by non-governmental organisations like this project’s consortium. Therefore four youth organisations from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland active in the field of youth participation for animal welfare, agricultural transparency, sustainable food production and consumer rights combined their expertise to develop and carry out a European project. The objective of the project was to develop the skills and competences of youth participating as volunteers in animal protection organizations. This was achieved by creating 48-page digital manual “Becoming Active for Animals” and organizing a blended training event for 52 young animal protection volunteers to gain new skills and knowledge necessary for active participation in the shaping of national policies regarding animal welfare and agricultural transparency. By developing a European level, different language versions (English, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Polish) were used and contents were designed inter-culturally sensitive.
This project does not only promote the participation of the youth in public discourse and political decisions but also strengthens the capacity for effectiveness and efficiency within the partner organizations alike. It allows the uptake of the project results by other NGOs and youth institutions providing a facilitated transfer into their own national context. For documentation and interaction purposes an ICT-based communication infrastructure was installed and is maintained. The project comprised project management, two transnational meetings, blended 3 day online training based on contents of the project product – digital manual – and a 5 day presence training event for 52 participants. Four presentations from the training event as well as the flash-mob carried out by learning event participants were documented on high quality video and published online afterwards. The development of a digital manual, project web presence www.nearnetwork.org and file-sharing database as well as dissemination activities were all covered by the project management costs for reasons of efficiency. For the partner organisations the proposed project gave a unique, inter-cultural knowledge exchange, the exploitation of synergy effects and significant improvement in their youth work. Staff from the participating organizations implemented and ran two meetings collecting the heads of all partners to share their experience in youth work and communicate best practice examples in a peer learning format. Additionally third meeting was implemented where project partners form Estonia and Latvia cooperated for common activity involving youth – campaigning and lobby work for law change to ban wild animal use in circus. These activities took place at venues of three partnering countries. To the partner organisations the enhancement of their information offers in a European context signified the usage of synergy effects with very much alike organisations, the testing of their instruments for a target audience abroad and consequently the disclosure of a new, intercultural target audience, an internationalization of their expertise and research, a mutual enrichment by their diverse cultural and educational approaches, an exchange of best practices and a shared infrastructure. Other thematically related youth organisations and NGOs throughout Europe can use the project’s results freely under the creative commons licence. Including the proposed project products into their own project portfolio allows for strengthened educational offer themselves. Knowledge actively gained through the project is now disseminated through the organizations’ national information channels, engaging in public relations and youth work nation-wide and exploiting the multiplier effect.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 36825 Eur

Project Coordinator

Dzivnieku briviba & Country: LV

Project Partners

• Loomade Nimel Toetusselts MTÜ
• Stowarzyszenie Otwarte Klatki
• VsI “Tusti narvai”