The Study Session, entitled Regenerate (YOU)th: Cultivating Circular Economy Solutions in Youth Work,  aimed to foster the quality development of youth work by enhancing youth workers’ competencies in circular economy and project management in order to create a sustainable project management model framework for youth organisations.

The Study Session provided the space to accomplish the following objectives:

• Increase 25 youth workers’ understanding of circular economy principles and their application within youth work, using non-formal education methods;
• Enhance 25 youth workers’ project management skills with an emphasis on sustainability;
• Equip 25 youth workers with a practical methodology rooted in design thinking that supports the conceptualization, planning and implementation of innovative youth projects that directly respond to societal needs;
• Develop a sustainable project management framework tailored to the needs and challenges of youth work, integrating circular economy principles and using a design thinking concept.

Girls Go Circular aims at empowering girls and young women aged 14 to 19 to develop digital and entrepreneurial skills through an innovative online learning programme focused on the circular economy. The project aims to close the gender gap in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) by giving participants the tools and knowledge to be in the digital and green transitions.

The goal of this project is for students to engage with an interactive e-learning platform (the Circular Learning Space) where they complete challenges and collaborate on practical solutions.

The project has already reached over 80,000 students in more than 30 countries and continues to grow across Europe.

With this project we aim to bring together different stakeholders with a specific knowledge set, who all contribute to the overall aim of the project: to create the competence framework for youth work on circular economy and sustainability. The framework would include an overview of which knowledge, skills and attitudes young people (and beyond) would need to ensure sustainable practices are implemented on a personal and societal levels.

ECMA empowers young people to become change makers in their own community and beyond. Throughout the project 6 experienced community leaders from the youth field (Change Ambassadors) will mentor 30 motivated young people that want to make a difference in their local communities (Change Makers). By participating in a series of online meetings, study visits, events, trainings and a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), the Change Makers will learn how to raise awareness, how to engage other young people on a local level, how to organize and motivate a local community and how to mentor others that want to make a change.

Through its mentoring programme, the European Change Makers Academy aims to reach more than 120 potential activists (Multipliers) in 6 different countries (Croatia, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland & Italy). Through their participation in the project Change Makers and Multipliers will be able to strengthen local youth organisations, build a bridge between policy-makers and young people on a local and European level and foster youth participation and active citizenship.

For more detailed information, follow the project via official Website, Linkedin or Instagram.

Equality, inclusion and diversity are core values of youth work in Europe. Many vulnerable young people
in the Eastern Partnership countries have limited access to the four major aspects of inclusion:
education, healthcare, employment and civic participation. The youth inclusion gaps in the Eastern
Partnership countries are covering a broad spectrum of dimensions, from gender rights to the rights of
people with disabilities.

Given this context, a European consortium of youth organizations implements a project – “InclusiON
NOW! Development of Inclusive Youth Work in the Eastern Partnership countries”.

We aim to offer an opportunity for a professional development to a group of youth professionals in the
Eastern Partnership countries who work in the area of youth inclusion. Additionally, we are aiming at
incorporating the issue of inclusion of young people to the advocacy goals of the Working Group 4 of the
Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum and advocate for more youth inclusion both at the national and
European levels.

The objectives of the project are the following:

– Sharing experiences and best practices on increasing inclusiveness of youth work provided to
the disadvantaged young people in the Eastern Partnership countries.

– Equipping young professionals from the Eastern Partnership countries with practical tools and
methods to use in their everyday work with disadvantaged young people.

– Creating a network of partners in the EU and the Eastern Partnership who jointly develop quality
youth work measures to support inclusion of disadvantaged young people.

– Mapping good practices, training activities, tools and methodologies, which promote youth
inclusion and disseminating them among the members of the Working Group 4 of the Eastern
Partnership Civil Society Forum and beyond.

– Incorporating the issue of inclusion of young people under the risk of marginalization in the
advocacy goals of the Working Group 4 of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum.

– Disseminating and mainstreaming the results, recommendations and the position paper
elaborated within the project among the relevant EU institutions and the national governments
in the Eastern Partnership countries.

Through the project, we are planning to implement the following activities:

Activity 1: Development of a tailor-made training module on Youth Inclusion in the Eastern Partnership
countries for Youth Workers and Youth Educators

Activity 2: InclusiON NOW! Training for Youth Workers and Youth Educators in the Eastern Partnership
countries (based on the training module)

Activity 3: Study Visit to Fryshuset Youth Center in Sweden

Activity 4: Development of a package of Recommendations

Activity 5: Advocacy of the recommendations and objectives of the EaP CSF among national and
European stakeholders

The project is implemented by Armenian Progressive Youth NGO (Armenia) in cooperation with the
Belarusian students’ association (Belarus), the Local Democracy Agency (Georgia), the Foundation for
Advancement (Moldova), the Youth organization “STAN” (Ukraine), IZ – Association for the Promotion
of Diversity, Dialogue and Education (Austria), AEGEE-Europe (Belgium) and Fryshuset Foundation
(Sweden).

The project benefits from support through the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum Re-granting
Scheme (FSTP) and is funded by the European Union as part of its support to civil society in the region.

The final output of this annual work plan is a handbook of quality and easy-to-use resources on how to implement gender mainstreaming in youth activities. HerMainY aims at providing youth organisations with this handbook and supporting them in the adoption of these practices, with the aim of contributing to the mainstreaming of gender sensitivity in the youth sector.

HerMainY consists of 5 phases:

– A Training for Trainers taking place 2nd-9th March 2020 in Moscow, Russia, that has the aim of equipping youth workers with competences, knowledge and skills necessary to implement gender mainstreaming measures in communication at all levels in local organisations.

– An Action Tour, in collaboration with Europe on Track (a project by AEGEE-Europe supported by Interrail). 6 ambassadors (trained in Moscow) will travel around Europe on two routes to raise awareness and gather the opinions of young people, in at least 11 different locations, for a total of 500 young people, on SOGI and gender mainstreaming.

– A Dissemination phase, taking place during the Spring and Summer period, when the trainers will travel to at least 9 different youth organisations. There they will train youth workers on the competences necessary to implement gender mainstreaming measures in communication in local organisations, and support them in the implementation thereof.

– The Evaluation phase, in which the project team together with trainers will monitor, evaluate and collect good practices in gender mainstreaming in communication, especially taking into consideration the results of the first three phases.

– The Creation and Dissemination of a Handbook. After the evaluation phase, all the people involved in the project will work on the collection of materials and resources, in order to create a handbook of best practices and tools to implement gender mainstreaming in youth organisations. This phase includes online and offline dissemination, and the support on the implementation of these practices for youth workers and their organisations.

Check out the Instagram page of HerMainY here!

]]> /mint/ Wed, 04 Mar 2020 13:47:19 +0000 /?p=8378 Since Autumn 2018, AEGEE / European Students’ Forum has been raising awareness on the topic of Mental Health within the organization.

In Autumn 2019, thanks to the support of the European Youth Foundation (Council of Europe), AEGEE launched a project titled MINT: Mental health In Non-formal education and Training.

This project includes a live meeting (February 2020, Brussels) and an 8-day long training event (April 2020). The training event will be hosted by and organized in cooperation with AEGEE-Tartu (Estonia). During this training event 16 participants will learn about Mental Health and how to apply this in their trainings. These participants are active and experienced trainers in the youth field. A booklet will be produced, during the training event, including ideas and methods on how to include a mental health perspective in non-formal education and training. The booklet will be shared with all trainers of AEGEE-Academy (the official pool of trainers of AEGEE-Europe) and with external partners and youth NGOs.

Our objectives are to:

• Inform about the European Parliament as an institution and the upcoming election.
• Educate about the importance of European citizenship, the democratic process of civic participation.
• Open a dialogue and empower young people to become active citizens.

The activities:

Our projects are divided into various online and offline activities at local and European levels. It includes workshops, conferences, debates or discussions revolving around the youth and its issues. The activities are listed as such:

• Project team meetings
• Training for facilitators
• Week of Europe – with AEGEE-Delft
• Action Tours
• Regional Multiplier Meetings
• European Democracy Day – with AEGEE-Bucharest
• Young European Activists’ Hub or YEAH Festival – with AEGEE- Torino, ToGather and the city of Turin (website: http://yeahub.eu).
• Social media campaign

YEP 2.0. is in partnership with a larger communication campaign launched by the European Parliament called “#thistimeimvoting”. The initiative is to raise and reinforce the awareness about the importance of voting as well as supporting the engagement of young citizens. To be a part of the campaign, you can register via this link: http://ttimv.eu/aegee.

If you want to find out more about YEP 2.0, make sure to follow us on our social networks. The project is co-funded by the European Parliament and ends on July 31st.

In 2019, and thanks to the support of the European Youth Foundation (Council of Europe), AEGEE is launching a project titled S.M.A.S.H.: Structural Measures Against Sexual Harassment. During this project, AEGEE will be able to further increase its expertise and enlarge the pool of members who are trained to prevent, detect and react to cases of sexual harassment (named Safe Persons).

The aim of SMASH is to create a sustainable system to prevent and tackle the problem of sexual harassment in (youth) organisations, as well as other events and activities involving youth, using AEGEE as a pilot but ensuring the replicability, scalability and dissemination of our activities.

In order to do so, we will train youth workers on how to prevent, detect and react to sexual harassment in their local organisations and communities, becoming Safe Persons and creating a network of Safe Persons all over Europe.

Besides, educational guidelines for youth workers on how to become Safe Person and how to implement a system that enables tackling sexual harassment in their local organisations will be produced throughout the project, as well as a trainers’ toolkbox to ensure the multiplier effect.

These methods will be tested in a series of events in different parts of Europe, gathering from 50 to 1000 young people, during the Spring and Summer 2019. Thanks to the input from these events, as well as the one from an expert on sexual harassment, the guidelines will be adapted and finalised to be disseminated among AEGEE’s network and other youth organisations in a closing event in Brussels in winter 2019.  

To sum up, the main events of the workplan will be:

• Training for youth workers in Tbilisi, Georgia, 9-14 April
• Training for youth workers in Helsinki, Finland, June 
• Training for trainers in Alicante, Spain, 2-8 October 
• Closing event, Brussels, December 2019

If you are interested in the project, and in particular in piloting the Safe Person method in your organisation, feel free to contact us at safe.person@aegee.eu!

The project encompasses various aspects, all the way from capacity building tracks to large scale youth exchange events to interactive spaces of dialogue between young people and decision makers. My Europe, My Say will be:

1. Strengthening the capacities of youth organisations to offer activities which enhance youth participation, civic competences and political awareness and to increase outreach to more vulnerable and socio-economic disadvantaged young people.
2. Offering young people, the opportunity to reflect upon their European identity and values – in the framework of the new narrative for Europe.
3. Engaging youth organisations into a pan European campaign around Youth Participation to elections– especially in the framework of the European Elections in May 2019. This will help building a common understanding of an EU citizenship
4. Providing young people with relevant information on how to register to vote while living in another EU country.
5. Creating spaces of dialogue with decision makers in the framework of the European Elections and beyond. This goal will help reconnect young people to decision-makers while utilising innovative and interactive communication methods such as online forums and webinars.
6. Engaging a large number of young people from all across the continent to spread awareness about the importance of participating in the 2019 EU elections, with contributions from our project teams of Y Vote and Europe on Track.

Participating AEGEE-locals

Project partners:

AEGEE-Sofia, AEGEE-Zagreb, AEGEE Düsseldorf, AEGEE-Athina, AEGEE-Budapest, AEGEE-Torino, AEGEE-Utrecht, AEGEE-Warszawa, AEGEE-Maribor, AEGEE-Leon, AEGEE-Istanbul, AEGEE-Tallinn

+ Hosting locals for events:

AEGEE-Cluj-Napoca, AEGEE-Passau, AEGEE-Antalya, AEGEE-Bamberg, AEGEE-Izmir, AEGEE-Tartu

+ Two project teams: Y Vote, Europe on Track

My Europe, My Say is with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, and will run from October 2018-October 2019