YOUTHreach’s goal is to help the young people across Europe during a time when mental health problems in the 12-25 age group are skyrocketing. For this project, researchers designed a suite of youth-centred tools and interventions. Over a period of five years, the project evaluates the cost-effectiveness, safety and scalability of three pre-existing mental health solutions:

–          Walk-in centres offering anonymous and personalised mental health support without reservations.

–          App‑based training, a guided self-help mobile intervention designed to enhance psychological well-being.

–          Online platforms blending professional and peer support in a secure, interactive environment.

As the organisation that is mainly in charge of the communications efforts for the project, we hope to help young people better understand what YOUTHreach is and provide them with new tools to support their mental health.

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.

AEGEE-Europe is honoured to be a partner organisation and to work collaboratively with the Consortium to accomplish the project’s goal, namely supporting international students in host countries. Many foreign students encounter difficulties with administrative procedures as well as challenges regarding the social integration in the local communities. Therefore, this project seeks to smoothen the arrival process and make a positive impact on the overall international experience of students.

The project has the following target groups: international students on mobility, local students, and higher education institutions.

The project aims to:

• Improve the welcoming of international students by supporting them with administrative formalities;
• Connect local and international students;

Create a long-lasting welcoming culture for international students.

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!