The Project

The overall aim of the project is the promotion of active youth participation and peace-making process through youth work. To achieve this aim, the partners will first work on the competence development of youth professionals (youth workers, youth trainers, mentors of ESC volunteers). The 21st century has seen the rise of conflicts, whether armed, psychological or of other nature, which inevitably lead to a human rights crisis like never before. Sustainable, lasting peace and security can only be attained when all human rights are fulfilled. Building and maintaining a culture of peace is a shared challenge for humankind. The Santiago Declaration on the Human Right to Peace, adopted in 2010 by The International Congress on the Human Right to Peace recognizes individuals, groups, peoples and all humankind as holders of the “inalienable right to a just, sustainable and lasting peace” (Art. 1). The declaration also calls for the right to education “on and for peace and all other human rights” as a component of the right to peace because “education and socialization for peace is a condition sine qua non for unlearning war and building identities disentangled from violence”. In the light of current critical situations putting peace at risk worldwide, it is important to address the need for peace education and provide youth workers with skills and knowledge on peacebuilding, prevention of conflicts and resolving the occurrence of conflicts in a peaceful way, which they can transfer upon young people in a non-formal and sustainable manner. The main objectives of the project idea is to equip youth workers through their involvement in an action group. The project will provide them with tailor-made mentoring and education developing their skills important for participation. We will connect vulnerable youth with institutions (municipalities, NGOs), help them understand each other, and foster their cooperation on civic activities, by mainstreaming the opportunities for young citizens (Discover EU, Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps, Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs) and also by helping them on disseminating the positive effects of cross-sector collaborations and their contribution to fostering solidarity. The project is a holistic attempt to ensure the promotion of the European Youth Goals in the civil society organizations, by improving the advocacy and lobbying skills of the youth workers and also developing a participatory methodology to accompany young people with fewer opportunities to lead processes of civic engagement and active citizenship. Because of the dramatic situation in Ukraine, young people continue to face significant barriers to inclusion, support, and acknowledgment in peace processes. This limits their ability to play a meaningful role in shaping efforts to promote the cessation of or prevent a return to, violent conflict, as well as to contribute to building lasting peace in their contexts.

HOPE states present!

“Helping Youth Organizations to lead processes of Civic Engagement and Active Citizenship”, Project with the acronym HOPE, will equip the youth professionals with practical tools to use in their work, focusing on drafting a youth strategy for solidarity and peace-making necessity, in order to be included in the EU Youth Policy, by activating and engaging more and more youth across Europe. The youth workers will support the active participation of the young people with fewer opportunities with the aim to bring about social change. The direct target group of our project is youth professionals. The end beneficiaries of our project are young people with a focus on those with fewer opportunities, totally in line with the conflict situation in Ukraine and the fewer opportunities regarding the active European Citizenship.

Specific objectives (SO):

• SO1 To understand the level, depth and dimensions of integration of the political dimension into the trainers’ work in the partner countries (with the implementation of Research).
• SO2 To build on the capacity of the youth organization in managing active citizenship initiatives by developing the competences of young voluntary coordinators and young volunteers.
• SO3 To learn how to use innovative methods which are attractive to the young people with fewer opportunities in order to stimulate youth participation in general but also with a focus on contemporary issues which affect youth lives.
• SO4 To enable youth workers to understand social media and to provide them with tools and procedures to run successful online campaigns together with the youth on issues that affect the youth and the societies they live in.

One of the major issues contemporary democracies faces in Europe is the political disengagement of the young people when comes to traditional politics or organizational membership. Young people are very engaged by in non-organizational structures, like initiatives. They have a resistance to formal membership usually, and engage more spontaneously, for a certain specific curse, time limited, through “passive” support via social media (like, dislike, comment, or share) and usually expect instant gratification, which is difficult in political and societal changes. The rise of the social networks has transformed the way young people become engaged. Yet, in the youth organizations there are youth professionals who are still used in working with traditional methods of participation like for example signing handwritten petitions on paper (when today everything moves into online petitions) or supporting the organization of foot demonstrations (when most campaigns happen on the social media). With our project we wish to address the need of youth professionals for continuous professional development with a focus on competences to support the active participation of young people.

The direct target group of our project is youth professionals (youth workers, youth trainers, mentors of ESC volunteers). The project will connect with those working with youth and engage them as multipliers to empower youth in policy actions. Our project is focusing to encourage young people to actively participate in society, therefore the main target group we are going to work with are youth professionals with active involvement in fields such as democracy, human rights, policy learning, intercultural acceptance, social inclusion. We are addressing both the more experienced ones and the newcomers in youth working, as we believe that the interaction among them in the project’s activities will facilitate the flow of know-how and they will learn from one another in a practical and experiential way. The end beneficiaries of our project are young people with a focus on those with fewer opportunities. The predominant view in the literature is that social class and educational history appear to be crucial predictors of political engagement. Especially when it comes to youth participation in politics, education and social class have the most bearing on levels of youth political engagement, where the length of time a person has been in full-time education has a crucial impact on their political participation. Additionally, all the partners work with youth workers that face themselves fewer opportunities, additionally, it is expected that several young people will belong to the same specific categories: social and economic obstacles, cultural differences, disabilities. Youth is a valuable resource that can contribute to the development of European society. Through this project we are targeting youth workers who are working with youth who seek to take advantage of the available opportunities to raise their concerns with policymakers and to discuss and develop policy issues, that concerns them and their needs, at the local, national and European level. We strongly believe that the needs and expectations of young people across Europe should be considered. In specific:

• BRATISLAVA POLICY INSTITUTE will involve people with fewer opportunities comers from post-conflict areas to be equally engaged.
• Fifty-Fifty will involve more people with economic obstacles: people with a low standard of living, low income, dependence on social welfare system or homeless; people in long-term unemployment or poverty; people in debt or with financial problems.
• ASEL RO, as neighborhood of Ukraine will invite migrants and refugees, young people with a low level of education or without work, and young people from rural areas.
• Future WE will involve more people facing geographical obstacles: people from remote or rural areas; people living in peripheral regions; people from less serviced areas, as associated partners.

Taking all the above into consideration, HOPE states present!