Get Involved, Shape Your Community Erasmus Project

Project Title

Get Involved, Shape Your Community

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: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

Our organizations embarked on undertaking and building a 21 months’ project focused on ecouraging youth participation, after recahing the conclusion from the work we do daily in the community, that a lot of young people do not get involved at all in any community or youth activity, that aims at changing community or even improving themselves in terms of education, in other contexts than school. The research activities we unfolded in the writing phase of the project and surveys at local level, inforced these conclusions. On the other side, by having a look on the ones that have had the opportunity to take part in Erasmus+ projects through our organizations or otherwise, we noticed that there is a barrier between them and the rest of youths from the community. And the „fortunate” ones’ encounter difficulties in sharing and raising interest on they have learned and acquired during the mobility. In this context, youth workers have a crucial role in facilitating the link between the knowledge the youth gain and the local community. Youth workers do not have the necessary skills to work with their volunteers and youths on touching and interacting with their own communities for creating change at local level, in a structured and strategic way. At the organizational level, NGOs are implementing Youth Exchanges, for instance, but they don’t really reach out the community in order to raise awareness on different topics. Most of the time this interaction is either resumed at organizing workshops at a local level, with a few dozens of youths, or posting articles online. This approach is not creating a real change in the community, just sending a small piece of information in the local context.

Main goal:
youth workers to acquire knowledge and skills to support young people from their communities in increasing their level of civic engagement by unfolding different campaigns and initiatives at local level.

Objectives:
– youth workers to acquire skills for supporting young people in using non-formal methods for disseminating info and reaching out to community members that would otherwise not have access to information;
– have youth workers and organizations capable of linking youths with different groups of interest at local level and connect with public institutions and other organizations that contribute to supporting youth and their education;
– use digitalization and new technologies in reaching out to community members on various topics that impact young people and all members of the community;

We will reach the objectives through a series of connected international learning teaching activities and local activities that will consist of research and mapping of all the authorities at local, regional, national level that can impact the lives of youths that we are working with, meetings with officials, advocacy campaigns unfolded by youths themselves on different issues such as education, environment, volunteering, active citizenship ,etc; all these activities will help us reach the objectives we set our for the project. 3 joint staff training events are designed for participants to exchange experiences and best practices from local awareness campaigns and local events developed for youths, and test and identify the best methods and activities, so that they are then used by all partner organizations and outside of the partnership.

Goals of:
C1: youth workers to acquire the skills to engage young people in low budget non-formal activities for reaching out to the community on different issues: environment, inclusion of young people with disabilities, active citizenship, healthy lifestyle and nutrition, promoting volunteering as a path for developing skills for future careers, etc.
C2: to help youth workers improve their activities aimed at youth participation, through the use of specific methods and approaches designed to fill in their gaps in information and assertiveness in the topics of youth participation and advocacy for solving problems that affect young people and help create further opportunities for them;
C3: to equip youth workers with the mindset and attitude, so that they use more effectively social media and collaborative online tools for youth participation and involvement of young people. Our 12 video tutorials, booklet with recommendations, constant links through the 21 months of activities with local stakeholders, authorities will provide a long lasting impact, as each partner will build strong connections to the local community and involve youths in this process and what happens in their community, and provide a sharing effect for our results to be used in different contexts.

Project Website

https://ifjusaginomadklub.org/project/get-involved-shape-your-community/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 42570 Eur

Project Coordinator

IFJUSAGI NOMAD KLUB NONPROFIT KFT & Country: HU

Project Partners

• ASOCIATIA INITIATIVE SI PROIECTE PENTRU TINERET IMAGO MUNDI
• CJE – Clube De Jovens Europeus
• Asociacija “Keliauk, kad keistum”
• Iniciatíva mladých