Here To Stay. Claiming Youth-led Civic Space Erasmus Project

Project Title

Here To Stay. Claiming Youth-led Civic Space

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; Inclusion – equity; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

Here To Stay (HTS) is a strategic partnership targeting shrinking civic space in Europe and the implications it has on young people. Youth become less engaged as European citizens (youthforeurope.eu, 2018) and are limited in their fundamental rights to gather and express themselves freely. Results of these developments are, among others, disengagement of youth in decision-making processes and their social exclusion (Youth Partnership report, 2015) which prevents young people from becoming agents of social change.

The project is an initiative to counter the European trend and increase the engagement of youth through safe civic spaces. We aim to create an enabling and productive environment for youth work to facilitate the process of involving young people in decision-making and use of civic space. More specifically, our way to enrich youth work and to target young people and get them to participate actively is by focusing on the social aspects of society youth like most: sport, dance, music, and arts. This project will therefore use the power of sport and youth culture to capacitate youth work in order to increase youth-led civic space and young people’s civic engagement.

We pursue our main objective through four different strategies, based on the needs of youth workers and youth in Europe. Firstly, we aim to increase the knowledge of how youth work(ers) can facilitate and increase youth-led civic spaces. Secondly, we will disseminate this knowledge on a open and dynamic virtual civic space for youth work(ers) and youth. The aim is to provide easy access to and create one accessible EU information source to gather knowledge on civic space for youth. Third parties are actively invited and welcomed to share their civic space stories in the virtual space too. Thirdly, we aim to empower and grow the capacity of European youth work to facilitate youth-led civic space. Fourthly, the project will actively advocate for the awareness within EU youth work to contribute to civic space for young people.

We envision three long-term results for European youth and youth work. Firstly, we aim to inspire young people and youth workers to actually claim a civic space in their own environment, leading to an increase of youth-led initiatives. Secondly, we envision an increase in youth participation and engagement in these civic spaces. Thirdly, we aim to create an environment in which young people are actively involved in decision-making processes that affect their lives and communities. In order to achieve these results, we have designed the following activities:
1. Gaining insight in the critical success factors for claiming civic space for young people by European youth work. This process will be carried out through combined field- and desk research on three different levels. Firstly, the creation of a theoretical framework for the creation of youth-led civic spaces. Secondly, by the development of good practices to ensure the practical applicability of the research results and thirdly, by mapping the necessary support for youth workers to facilitate the entire process.
2. Creating an open and interactive virtual civic space for the exchange of good practices and inspiration of new initiatives. This virtual space is a platform for youth, youth workers, and youth work organisations, presenting a wide range of good practices that is grounded in the reality and demands of youth work provision.
3. Developing a youth space toolkit for youth workers to help and support them in facilitating youth to claim civic spaces. The toolkit consists of practical knowhow, and provides guidance and resources for implementers.
4. Organising 1 international youth work training in which European youth workers are introduced to the toolkit and equipped with the necessary means, knowledge, and inspiration to use it.
5. Organising 4 international multiplier events in which we promote the use of our intellectual outputs, building the capacity of European youth work and ensuring the dissemination of the project outputs for youth, youth workers, and CSOs.

The direct results of these activities are:
1. IO1: A digital open-source research report on the success factors for claiming youth-led civic spaces by European youth work.
2. IO2: >10.000 European youth, youth workers, and CSOs have access to a virtual civic space where they can freely access good practices, find inspiration and gain knowledge from various experiences.
3. IO3: >1000 youth workers and their organisations have access to a practical toolkit on how to claim civic space for young people.
4.Training: 30 youth workers from at least 4 different countries are trained on how to use this toolkit and made aware of the importance of civic space for youth, resulting in an open access video for other youth workers on the digital platform (IO2).
5. > 100 European youth workers and their organisations actively use IO2 and IO3 in their daily practices in claiming youth-led civic space

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 213816 Eur

Project Coordinator

INTERNATIONAL SPORTS ALLIANCE & Country: NL

Project Partners

• INEX – SDRUZENI DOBROVOLNYCH AKTIVIT Z S
• FUNDATIA JUDETEANA PENTRU TINERET TIMIS
• STICHTING INTERNATIONAL CHILD DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES
• OLTALOM SPORTEGYESULET