Generator Erasmus Project

Project Title

Generator

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Context
The issue we want to address is lack of youth leadership at part of the Nordic and Baltic youth NGOs -as this is a critical factor for the youth NGOs´ capacity, strength and society presence.

Aim
The aim of Generator is to increase Nordic and Baltic youth NGOs´ capacity to be strong actors in the modern society. By being strong society actors we mean that they bring relevant society issues to their agenda, and more effective channels for expressing young people´s opinions and action in the society.

Innovation
The innovation is a process of inter-generational dialogue to strengthen youth leadership in the Nordic and Baltic youth NGO, which helps them to reach the aim.

Objectives
The concrete objectives are to:
1. facilitate a joint seminar for youth workers/leaders of various age to define competences, experiences and views relevant for the development of the organisations,
2. produce an online course about how to use the full capacity young people and youth workers/leaders of various age bring to the youth NGOs, and
3. introduce, facilitate and spread the online course for youth workers and leaders.

Target group
The target group is youth workers (staff and volunteers) and leaders (board member and activity leaders).

Partnership
The Generator partners are 8 youth organisations from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Germany, Latvia, Norway and Sweden, and additionally we cooperate with associated partners in the same region. The youth leadership level vary in the partnership, which is an advantage as we have much to learn from each other.

Structure
Generator runs for 16 months (September 2019 – December 2020) and include
– A Seminar in November 2019 in Latvia, for initiating intergenerational dialogue as basis for producing the Online Course,
– Production of the Intellectual Output, the Online Course, which is done locally by the partners and coordinated online during the spring and summer 2020.
– Multiplying Events held at each of the 8 partners during August-September 2020, followed by a facilitated test round of the Online Course.
– 3 Transnational Project Meetings for project coordination and progress follow-up, held in in September 2019 in Finland, in January 2020 in Sweden and in November 2020 in Iceland.

Outcome
The online course is the projects’ main outcome, and it will consist of material (video/text input, assignments) supporting intercultural dialogue at youth NGOs such as:
– Good practice examples of well led activities
– Younger and older people´s view on future NGO format
– Theoretical input, research results and survey outcome on NGO leadership
– Tools for defining NGO´s current leadership format
– Exercises for leadership competence building and intergenerational cooperation
– Assignments, templates and support for planning intergenerational dialogue at the own NGO.
The Online Course material will be available online for individual use at any time, and we will run it in facilitated version during the project and afterwards. This means that a group of participants study the Online Course simultaneously during a 2-month period and discuss/reflect on the material at 3 facilitated online meetings.

Results
The overall expected result is a stronger youth NGOs in the Nordic-Baltic region.
The concrete expected results are that the organisations involved in Generator will to a higher degree have the young target group represented in the leadership and that this transfer is done in good intergenerational dialogue. It means for example that a bigger part of the board members would be under 30 and more activities would be managed by young people -and that expertise from previous experiences is still kept in the organisation, for example by older NGO-leaders staying in advisory roles. Each partner define their realistic goals to reach by the end of the project and after a 2-year follow-up period.

Impact
The impact on the approximately Generator 100 participants is that they gain competences to support strengthened youth leadership at youth NGOs.
The impact on the participating organisations is that they, by increased youth leadership, can better meet young people´s and the society´s need.
The wider impact is that the partners and associated partners, with together currently have half a million members, can become stronger actors in the Nordic-Baltic society.

Dissemination
We will disseminate Generator for wider use of the Online Course in the partnership, at associated partners and at Nordic and European umbrella organisations.

Follow-up
After Generator we will during a 2-years period follow up the strengthening of youth leadership at the participating NGOs. During this time we will continue running facilitated rounds of the Online Course, arrange study visits to experience best practice examples of NGO youth leadership and arrange structured dialogue sessions between young NGO members and NGO leaders.

Project Website

http://www.nordung.org/dynamo

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 78789 Eur

Project Coordinator

Nordisk Samorganisation for Ungdomsarbejde & Country: DK

Project Partners

• Latvijas Mazpulki
• Norges Bygdeungdomslag
• Riksförbundet Sveriges 4H
• Svenska lantbrukssällskapens förbund/Finlands svenska 4H
• Ungmennafélag Íslands
• Noorteühing Eesti 4H