Community Mediation for Youth Erasmus Project

Project Title

Community Mediation for Youth

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 : Capacity Building for youth in ACP countries, Latin America and Asia

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

CoMedY – Community Mediation for Youth is a project funded by the Erasmus+ Programme – Key Action 2, Capacity Building in the Field of Youth of the European Commission coordinated by P.E.CO. – Progetti Europei di Cooperazione and implemented between March 2016 and February 2018. CoMedY project stemmed from the encounter between Community Mediation practice and the experience in international youth work within non-formal educational contexts when we realized that they share some tools, methods, and possible scopes. For this reason, we proposed a pilot project based on three main topics to be developed and interconnected within different international activities: Community Mediation, non-formal education and youth active participation. By community mediation, we mean an approach that aims at preventing, managing and transforming conflicts by promoting local community involvement in decision-making processes through its empowerment which has never been applied before in European projects for international youth mobility.
The countries involved in the project were Italy, Portugal, and Spain for Europe; Argentina, Mexico, and Peru for Latin-America.
The method used during the project’s activities combined non-formal education techniques with training attended by representatives of partner organizations and local communities. We also think of the promotion of European Voluntary Service as a tool to enhance the connections between the diverse local contexts of the partner organizations.
CoMedY project’s main goal was to experiment, develop, and promote Community Mediation approach in the field of youth work, particularly E+.
During the drafting phase of the Project, we set the following objectives:
● Gaining knowledge and skills in Community Mediation methods, and learning how to apply them to improve and strengthen the effectiveness of interventions in local contexts; fostering the empowerment of the social groups the organizations are working with; strengthening the exchange with the local authorities;
● Fostering the use of tools and methods promoting youth active participation in the non- profit sector, in volunteering and youth organizations;
● Increasing the partner organizations’ effectiveness in advocacy capability, enabling youth NPOs to act as relevant stakeholders and potential ambassadors of the local communities and young people’ needs;
● Testing Community Mediation in the field of youth work and sharing best practices and methods for its design, implementation, and evaluation;
● Increasing potential youth involvement within their communities;
● Fostering strategic cooperation amongst youth organizations in the educational and training sectors through the exchange of best practices and the interconnection of organizational patterns and working practices and methods;
● Increasing the administrative, innovative, and international capabilities of youth organizations in the fields of education and training through the tools provided by the Erasmus+ Programme.
Participants have been youth workers and coordinators of the partner organizations, and young volunteers. The first explored the Community Mediation methodology and tried to understand how to apply it in the different local contexts, both during the Training Courses and through study visits in Latin America. EVS volunteers underwent a preliminary period of volunteering in their respective sending organizations and local communities and received baseline training on Community Mediation approach in order to contribute to the implementation of a Community Mediation-inspired local project during their EVS period.
During the project, a website was created (www.communitymediation.eu) where visitors can find materials on Community Mediation, EVS volunteers’ experiences, together with an handbook on Community Mediation. All materials are in English and Spanish.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 149798,79 Eur

Project Coordinator

P.E.CO. – PROGETTI EUROPEI DI COOPERAZIONE & Country: IT

Project Partners