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.

As the final step of this great project, we are organising the final conference of our My Europe My Say on the 4th of December!

This one-day conference will be in the European Parliament and will be hosted by Member of the European Parliament, MEP Niklas Nienaß (Greens/EFA).

The event is part of the LLLWeek 2019 which is organised by the Lifelong Learning Platform with a focus on Learning Democracy, Values and Participation.

Join us to celebrate the end of this project and the continuation of our youth participation journey!

You can find the registration link here!

During the conference, we will go through the lessons learnt during the project and present the guidelines developed as an outcome of it. In the first part, there will also be a presentation of the trainer’s toolbox that has been created, with which any organisation can train their own safe persons. Moreover, one of the Safe Persons will share their first-hand experience of tackling harassment in youth work. After this, a panel discussion of experts and policymakers will dive into the topic and explore the current state of affairs around sexual harassment and look for future steps. We will conclude with a reception where everyone is invited to informally discuss best practices and how they (plan to) deal with the topic in their own organisation.

You can register here!

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.

Press Release

Inclusive Mobility Alliance puts forth recommendations

for a more inclusive Erasmus programme

The Inclusive Mobility Alliance has been officially launched on the 22nd of January 2019 at the European Parliament. Gathering more than 20 organisations with expertise in Disability, Youth and Higher Education, the Alliance aims at making Erasmus+ more inclusive. Students and young people taking part in Erasmus+ mobilities represent respectively approx. 0.17% and 2.8% of all beneficiaries. These low figures have been stagnating for the past 10 years and are the main reasons behind the creation of the Inclusive Mobility Alliance.

Based on the United Nation Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD), the Alliance has produced 17 policy recommendations on how to make the Erasmus programme – the flagship of the European Union – more inclusive to students and young people with disabilities. The recommendations that are being published in a timely moment, when the next Erasmus programme for the period 2021-2027 is being drafted by the European Commission.

The recommendations call for a needs-based approach and include, among others:

• The necessity for all staff working with Erasmus+ to be trained on working and communicating with

potential beneficiaries in an inclusive way

• Inviting the European Commission to revise the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education including a

clause on disability and inclusion

• Inviting Member States to allow the portability of grants and support services between different countries

“Erasmus + is certainly the most successful program of the Union and more than any other has concretely contributed to the process of European integration. For this reason, we have gladly hosted this event: because we consider a priority for this experience to become truly as accessible as possible for everyone, regardless of the economic and physical conditions, and, therefore, truly inclusive,” said the Members of European Parliament Damiano Zoffoli and Luigi Morgano

“We have the right to experience the lifechanging benefits of mobility. The recommendations released by the Alliance are a roadmap to ensure this right,” said Yannis Vardakastanis, President of the European Disability Forum.

“For decades, the EU has proudly flagged the motto “unity in diversity”. I believe it is time to add more layers to the diversity of nations we proudly celebrate. Talking about inclusion of all needs of all people in Erasmus+ is bringing fairness to a flagship project of an Union we want to be actually diverse,” said João Pinto, President of the Erasmus Student Network.

By signing the Inclusive Mobility Alliance Declaration, MEPs Luigi Morgano and Damiano Zoffoli (S&D) and the 21 partners organisations have expressed their commitment to support the work of the Alliance and fight for more equal and fair access to the Erasmus+ programme for those underrepresented groups.

For more information please visit http://inclusivemobility.eu or contact dominique.montagnese@esn.org.

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!