Youth participation in politics and decision-making processes is a crucial aspect for the future of the European Union and several initiatives have been promoted to commit young people in view of the upcoming European elections.
The project
“Youth for Europe” is a long-term project funded by the EU Commission in the framework of the call European Youth Together (KA3 Erasmus+). It will involve more than 200 young people coming from Italy, Spain, Romania, Hungary, Germany and the United Kingdom. During six international Youth Exchanges, the youngsters will be asked to develop proposals to modify the current EU policies on three main topics (media, environment, youth and education). Through meetings with experts and several thematic workshops, the young participants could decide how to create and promote their proposals, which will be then collected on the online platform youthforeurope.eu and voted by the users at European level.
The young people who will have created the most voted proposals will take part in the Large Scale Youth Exchange (May 2020) to present their ideas to EU policy makers and institutions. Each group shall try to get the support for their proposals by members of EU Parliament, having the opportunity to meet them in person during the last meeting in Bruxelles.
The main goal
“Youth for Europe” offers the young participants the chance to play a central role in the European decision-making process and to get a deeper knowledge of the EU policies through intercultural learning, non-formal education and peer-to-peer activities.
The main objective of the project is to stimulate a bottom-up process. It will promote a more inclusive European society and establish dialogue and cooperation among young people, policy makers and organisations by fostering debates on EU policies at local, national and European level.
The partners
Here the organisations involved in the project: Associazione di Promozione Sociale Joint and Kora from Italy, DGT from Romania, Vilagjaro from Hungary, Jugend- & Kulturprojekt e.V. from Germany, Momentum World from the UK, Brujula Intercultural from Spain and, as advocacy expert, ECEPAA from Belgium.
Activities and events
- 25/11-02/12, Italy: kick off Meeting
- 6-14/02/19, Spain: seminar on Methodologies
- 11-21/03/19, Spain: 1st YE for EU Elections – topic: Media (application closing date: 11/01/2019)
- 9-19/04/19, Italy: 2nd YE for EU Elections – topic: Youth and Education (application closing date: 8/02/2019)
- 9/05/19, all countries: local events on EU elections
- 10-17/06/19, Hungary: mid term evaluation
- 5-12/07/19, Romania: 1st TC for Youth Leaders
- 7-17/09/19, Hungary: 1st Topic related YE: Youth and Education
- 1-14/10/19, Romania: 2nd Topic related YE: Environment
- 18-25/10/19, Germany: 2nd TC for Youth Leaders
- 4-14/12/19, Spain: 3rd Topic related YE : Environment
- 20-30/01/20, Italy: 4th Topic related YE: Media and data protection
- 10-13/04/20, Italy: APV large scale YE
- 2-10/05/20, Italy: Large Scale YE
- 21-25/09/20, Belgium: final evaluation.
