ycnet results and perspectives
DESCRIPTION
Final summary of the "European Youth Cities Network" projectTRANSCRIPT
A “Europe for Citizens” project
Project results and perspectives
European Youth Cities NetworkJuly 2010 / July 2011
EYC.NETEuropean Youth
Ci�es Network
Desde la Concejalía de Juventud del Ayuntamiento de Silla, estamos orgullosos del proyecto “European Youth Cities Network”, desde su impulso y comienzo el pasado año y también por su importancia dentro del marco europeo.
En este año de proyecto hemos visto como jóvenes de toda Europa han intercambiado no solo amistades si no también diferentes puntos de vista sobre su futuro y el de nuestra comunidad.
El proyecto se ha basado en los pilares fundamentales de nuestras jóve-nes generaciones: la cultura, el deporte, la participación y el empleo. Añadiendo a todo esto una participación muy activa de los ayuntamientos participantes y sus vecinos.
Desde Silla esperamos que este proyecto pueda realizarse entre otros jóvenes de Europa y que nos sirva a los que hemos participado a no dejar es-capar los vínculos que nos han unido a través de nuestros jóvenes.
Visitación CarriónConcejala de Juventud en Silla
From the Youth Department of Silla City Council, we are very proud of the “European Youth Cities Network” project since its first steps and for its large european impact.
In this one year project we have seen how young people across Europe have exchanged not only friendships but also different views about their future and their community.
This project is based on the fundamental pillars of our young generations: culture, sport, participation and employment. In addition, we must recognize a very active participation of the municipalities and their neighbouring. From Silla we hope that this project will follow under the participation of more european youngsters and we serve those who have participated to snap up the bonds that have united us through our young people.
Visitación CarriónYouth Counciller of Silla
SILLA
BREST
ARENZANO
PELHRIMOV
MEGARA
City: SILLACountry: SpainRegion: ValenciaInhabitants: 19 143Role in the project: Coordinator / Organizer of “Youth and Culture” seminar and Conclusion meeting.
City: ARENZANOCountry: ItalyRegion: LiguriaInhabitants: 11 724Role in the project: Partner / Organizer of “Youth and Sports” seminar
City: PELHRIMOVCountry: Czech RepublicRegion: VysocinaInhabitants: 16 546Role in the project: Partner / Organizer of “Youth Participation” seminar
City: BRESTCountry: FranceRegion: BretagneInhabitants: 142 097Role in the project: Partner / Organizer of “Youth employment” seminar
City: MEGARACountry: GreeceRegion: West AtticaInhabitants: 28 195Role in the project: Partner
Project partners
From July 2010 to July 2011, 5 European cities has been working together to define and develop the “European Youth Cities Network” (YCNET). This project was funded with the support of the European Commission within the framework of “ Europe for Citizens “ programme. It was coor-dinated by the municipality of Silla (SPAIN) in partnership with municipalities of Arenzano (Italy), Brest (France), Magara (Greece) and Pelhrimov (Czech Republic) and aimed to explore Youth policies around Europe and to set up improvement strategies at local and european level.
In that way, project partners worked together on the implementation of 5 international seminars all over Europe. During those events young people, youth workers and decision makers from the different countries involved could share experiences and points of view, and then, define common proposals to improve Youth situation in Europe.
Five cities to improve youth policies in Europe
July 2010 / July 2011
Starting Closure Place Topic
03/08/2010 09/08/2010 Silla (SPAIN) Youth and Culture
09/09/2010 15/09/2010 Arenzano (ITALY) Youth and Sport
31/01/2011 06/02/2011 Pelhrimov (CZECH REP) Youth Participation
29/03/2011 03/04/2011 Brest (FRANCE) Youth employment
31/05/2011 03/06/2011 Silla (SPAIN) Conclusion
MethodologyAs a common agreement, network partners chose to encourage non formal education and “lear-ning by doing” experiences. During those seminars, around 200 people got the opportunity to experiment intercultural learning through workshops, presentations, breanstormings, visits... as practical tools to explore and analyse different aspects of Youth policies around Europe.
Recommendations to municipalitiesAs a common activity of every YCNET seminars, the “recommendations to municipailties” wor-kshop concluded each one of the 5 seminars implemented. This activity aimed to set up a list of concrete proposals that could be implemented by european municipailites to support young people. During the last event in Silla, participants analysed the final list and defined common priorities to be focus on.
Toward a YCNET CharterThe project methodology and priorities defined from the “list of recommendations” allowed part-ners to suggest the establishment of a charter for the “European Youth Cities Network”. Then this document (which still need to be formalized) will be used as a base of agreement for further developments and actions of the network.
Other projects and follow upDuring YCNET seminars, participants have been trained on European programmes (“Europe for Citizens, “Youth in Action”, “Life Long Learning”...) and opportunities for young people (Mobility, European Voluntary Service...). Specific workshops called “Cooperat’in Europe” and an internet platform allowed them to define cooperation proposal that could be implemented in order to am-plify YCNET’s actions. Some of those projects have already been designed and/or implemented, and will suppose others cooperation between partners until at least end of 2012.
First seminar of the YCNET project took pla-ce in Silla during the local celebration of the town.
Municipality officers and local young people hosted during 7 days 30 european parti-cipants to debate about the importance of culture and the opportunities to improve its access for young people.
Among presentations, debates, visits to lo-cal cultural activities and participation to local celebrations, participants could define a set of proposals that could be implemented by public authorities in order to improve Youth Culture.
Participants also started to be trained to exis-ting european opportunities to improve youth inclusion, participation, cooperation and mo-bility. Those trainings allowed the definition of ideas for futur cooperations.
During this meeting, project partners also de-fined the common methodology to be deve-lopped during the whole project and further seminars that will happen in Italy, Czech Re-public and France.
MAIN ACTIVITIES
- Networking activities (Presentation games, offical presentation of delegations...)- Lectures and worshops about Youth and Culture - Practical workshop about European pro-grammes providing opportunities for young people (Europe for Citizens, Youth in Action, Life Long Learning...)- Intercultural workshops (Fallas, Paellas...)- Presentation and participation to local ce-lebrations, - Visit of the historical center of Valencia,
PARTICIPANTS
“Youth and Culture” seminar Silla (SPAIN), 03/08 to 09/08/2010
Host city: Invited: Total:
Young people: Youth workers: Decisions makers: Indirect beneficiaries:
253055
4384
80/100
Recommendations to municipalities
Cinema * To build up an alternative cinema where it will be possible to watch different kind of movies and documentaries (independent movies in original languages, documentary regarding arts, architecture, etc...)* To enable young people to make independent projects such as silent movies, etc.
Literacy and Journalism* To support young writers* To create and support European newspapers and websites which will be run by youth
Alternative cultural activities* To create free and legal places where it is possible to make graffitis* To organize and support various cultural events: street arts, treasure hunts, quiz-nights, con-tests for young people (arts, poems, literature, projects...) etc.
Cultural informations and offers* To create an alternative spending of free time, other than in bars* To create more and cheaper activities for children* To provide cultural information happening in the local area through SMS* To organize neighboring events and activities* To develop cultural facilities focused on local citizens and tourism* To create cultural centers where many activities could be offered to the youth: > languages courses and exchanges > learning by doing workshops about handy craft, music, art, etc. > offering spending their free time (common rooms with games, coffee, TV, etc.) > chill out zone, internet, wi-fi > providing intercultural dialogues > adapting the centre to the people with special needs
Second seminar happened in the north of Italy (Arenzano) during the one of the main sport event of the city, “Mare e Monti”, where thousand of people from all over the world participate every year.
During this activity week, YCNET participants could enjoy several sport activities organized by the city for young people. They also could participate to the Mare e Monti event, which consists in a walk from the sea shore to the top of the mountain of Arenzano )over 15 kilometers).
Lectures about Youth and Sports and pre-sentation of Sport Infrastructures and initia-tives in each city where also organised in order to define better what could be improve to propose a sport offer adapted to young people needs.
Through those activities partners and partici-pants had a great opportunity to strengthen their relationship and plan futur cooperation initiatives already initiated during the previous seminar in Silla.
MAIN ACTIVITIES
- Networking activities (Presentation games, in-tercultural dinner...)- Lectures and worshops about Youth and Sport- Practical workshop about European pro-grammes providing opportunities for young people (Europe for Citizens, Youth in Action, Life Long Learning...)- Sport activities ( Volley-ball, water-polo, rug-by, kayak, hike during “Mare e Monti”)- Participation to local cultural life (Concert, official celebrations...)- Visit of the historical center of Genova.
PARTICIPANTS
“Youth and Sport” seminar Arenzano (ITALY), 09/09 to 15/09/2010
Host city: Invited: Total:
Young people: Youth workers: Decisions makers: Indirect beneficiaries:
152540
2765
30/40
Sport installations and offers* To create free or cheap facilities for sport and sport centers * To keep and maintain the sport facilities in good condition* To adapt sport facilities for people with special needs (disabled, with mental disorders, etc.)* To provide night opening hours at sports facilities
Sport events and activities* To organize various sport competitions and fairs* To organize various outdoor activities related with nature
Promotion and support* To promote importance of sport at primary schools* To present sport as a tool for promoting healthy life style* To have more financial aids for sport
Recommendations to municipalities
Third event of the YCNET project mainly focused on how to improve the participa-tion of young people and how to optimize the impact of their initiatives at local or european level.
Though practical exercises young people got the opportunity to clarify the concept of “youth participation” and to understand the different steps of their possible actions. This analysis was completed by visiting local and regional authorities involved in supporting Youth policies. .
Czech organizers also arranged meetings and visits with local companies and orga-nisations in order to make understand the structure of social organisation of the town and to improve intercultural meetings.
On behalf of those activities young partici-pants kept on working on project proposals already defined during previous seminars in Spain and Italy. They finalized their ideas by setting up concrete action plans further evaluated by profesionals of Euro-pean cooperation projects.
MAIN ACTIVITIES
- Networking activities (games, intercultural din-ner, ice skating...)- Lectures and worshops about Youth Partici-pation- Visit of the Vysocina Regional council- Practical workshops about European projects design and plannification- Visit to local companies (Beer factory, Bakery, Tractor factories...)- Participation to local cultural life: Chocolate Hour event, museums...- Visit to Praga.
PARTICIPANTS
“Youth Participation” seminar Pelhrimov (CZECH REPUBLIC), 31/01 to 06/02/2011
Host city:Invited:Total:
Young people:Profesionals:Decisions makers: Indirect beneficiaries
152540
2893
40/50
Education* To teach at primary school the importance of participation, non formal education and coope-rative learning* To promote among young people the importance of participation and involvement in local life* To teach to to young people traditional events of their local community
Structured dialogue* To try to change the behaviour of politicians: more friendly, accessible, open minded and trying to involve young people into decision making processes* To organize various discussions between young people and decision makers* To facilitate, organize and support “sharing experiences” meetings among youngsters and professionals or politicians* To give a feedback about youth activities arranged by the municipality
Support to youth participation and expression* To support youth participation from the municipal level* To support and emphasize the importance of respect and citizenship* To open decision making process to the youth* To give an opportunity and open the doors for youth in local policy* To support youth initiatives and cooperate with young people* To give more responsibilities to the youth regarding their impact on the local community* To have a special space on the website of municipality devoted for youth and their activities
Recommendations to municipalities
Fouth seminar of the project was dedicated to youth employment and different strate-gies that could be developped in order to improve it.
In a first time, participants participated to practical workshops about professional in-clusion. Together the compared their local realities and explored different existing tools that could improve the access to labor mar-ket for young people in Europe.
Then was organized several visits to NGOS or public entities specialized in improving youth employment and developing innovati-ve initiatives to create job opportunities.
Finally participants introduced their local views of Youth employment in their country during the conference “Jeunes européens et emploi”. This evant gathered on the 1st of April, over 120 students, profesionals and decision makers. After sharing experiences about skills recognition, role of local autho-rities and international mobilities the event finalized on the introduction to the european initiative: “Youth on the Move”.
MAIN ACTIVITIES- Networking activities (games, intercultural dinner, art performance, concert...),- Worshops about youth employment (Curricu-lum vitae, international mobility...),- Visit to NGOs and public entities in charge on profesionnal inclusion,- Debate about employment in cultural field,- Co-organisation of the conference “Jeunes européens et emploi” in the Océanopolis of Brest,- Workshop “Recommendations to municipa-lities”,- Visit of the town and sea shore.
PARTICIPANTS
“Youth Employment” seminar Brest (FRANCE), 29/03 to 03/04/2011
Host city:Invited:Total:
Young people:Profesionals:Decisions makers:Indirect beneficiaries:
222850
30155
120/150
Education and training* To provide job trainings for young people in foreign language * To provide free courses or trainings to improve personal skills* To organize job sharing seminars and seminars about labour market* To support job interviews and making CVs trainings* To implement CVs preparation at high schools* To provide or organize trainings dealing with different topics: how to lead a communication cam-paign?, how to participate?, why is cooperation better then competition?, etc.
Access to labour market* To attract more companies to the municipality* To organize meetings between employers and potential employees, labour fairs, etc.* To create a local website with all the companies and their contacts, job opportunities and every happenings * To design a contract valid for several countries so that the people can easily work in whole Europe* To provide opportunity for people with fewer opportunities to work as volunteers* To create an office clerk within the employment office dedicated for youth employment* To simplify access to the driving license
Support to youth employment* To support non-profit organizations facilitating job to people* To support employing young people * To support young people in creating their own business (finance, resources, premises, etc.)*^To create a special funding to help recruitment of young people (for supporting companies to create new places)* To create a special budget line for job seminars and trainings* To establish a committee of representatives of the town, consisting of the representatives of the local community (schools, companies, students, politicians, seniors, clubs, etc.)* To establish an expert about European programs in the municipality
Recommendations to municipalities
Other recommendationsThose recommendations are the one formulated during the four previous seminars but which are going over topics.
Services* To provide more buildings for public, for example for non profit organization, for some voca-tional clubs, non formal groups of youth, etc. for lower rental or for free* To support and develop transportation to work (to adapt local transportation to the working hours and places)* To intensify the transportation during the weekends
Environment* To support and organize activities regarding the environment such as reforestation
HealthTo organize activities dealing with healthy eating habits
Accomodation* To help young people with the accommodation, to find a flat, to have a grants or so
Recommendations to municipalities
Last meeting of the project aimed to evalua-te project activities and events and discuss about future steps to be implemented in or-der to develop and strentghen the European Youth Cities Network.
During this meeting delegations selected the most relevant recommendations that have been formulated during past seminars and discussed with others in order to define common priorities for Youth policies. This work allowed to define bases of future act-vities to be developped by the Youth Cities Network.
Participants also discussed about main suc-cesses and failures of the project. They also defined possible startegies to communica-te the project and manage to involve new partners.
Finally participants realized interviews about their experiences and expectations after this project in order to finalize the video presen-tation of the project.
MAIN ACTIVITIES- Evaluation of past seminars and project im-plementation- Workshop and debate on “recommendations to municipalities”- Workhsop on Communication and diffusion of project results- Debate about the defintion of a YCNET char-ter- Interviews for final video report- Presentation of project results to Silla’s au-thorities- Visit of Valencia center
PARTICIPANTS
Conclusion meeting seminar Silla (SPAIM), 31/05 to 03/06/2011
Host city:Invited:Total:
Young people:Profesionals:Decisions makers: Indirects beneficiaries:
81220
873
20/30
On behalf of those seminars, the Network has impulsed several derivated projects. Those projects (already implemented or not) are involving 2 or more partners of the network. They are bringing great
opportunities for young people to keep on participating at european level.
The Eyes Out project organized as a coo-peration between the municipality of Silla and Hodina H (Pelhrimov) hosted in Silla 15 young volunteers from all over Europe to be trained to improve the communication
skills of their organisation and projects. More info: http://tceyesout.com/
Twinning between Arenzano and SillaDuring this project municipalities of Silla and Arenzano have formalized a twinning agre-ement. This long term partnership bases its com-mitment on cooperation to support non for-mal education and life long learning initiati-
ves. This twinning arrangement is a logical follow up of cooperation projects already im-plemented between both municipalities
VISA Project (September-december 2010)This project between the municipality of Silla and the italian cooperative COOPSE (Aren-zano/Genova) has been designed in the framework of the GRUNDTVIG programme. It proposed an innovative project to impul-se and support international volunteering for seniors between the towns of Silla and Aren-zano. The project already allowed 8 seniors from both cities to realize 3 weeks voluntary service in the partner town.
Others projects and ideas
European youth exchange (July 2011)Municipality of Silla and COOPSE are also cooperating in the organisation of a youth exchange in Spain that will gather 20 spa-nish and italian kids to share experiences and cultures during 10 days.
EYES Out (January 2011)
European Youth MEDIALAB (April 2011 - September 2012)
European Voluntary Service (EVS)EVS is also a programme implemented by some municipalities involved in the YCNET project: every year around 40 young volun-teers are already sent and hosted from and in Silla, Pelhrimov and Brest.The development of this activity between YCNET members allows the development of long term bilateral partnerships and im-proves relationships between local commu-nities. As an example the municipality of Silla hos-ted during 9 months Petra Janu from Pe-lhrimov, and in august 2011, the spanish girl Mari Ibañez will start her EVS in Czech Republic.
Others ideas and proposalsYCNET participants also keep on working in the development of projects defined during the differents events of the project. Those propo-sals stands on 3 main directions:* Organisation of an transnational Art event;* Organisation of a european music festival;* Realisation of an international short movie.
Others projects and ideas
The European Youth MEDIALAB project funded with the support of “Youth in Action” programme aims to develop strategies and technological tools to improve communication and cooperation between young europeans. This 18 months project, coordinated by the municipaility of Silla is providing training to youth workers and developing an Web com-munication platform directly managed and developped by young poeple of Spain, Es-tian, Bulgaria, France and Czech Republic.
More info: www.youthmedialab.eu
Project achievements and conclusions allowed partners to set up a first proposal to define a charter for the “European Youth Cities Network”. This charter should be one base of further de-velopment of the Network all over Europe.
This proposal stands on common points defined during the whole project:- a common methodology to deal with youth policies- common goals to be focus on by the YCNET members
YCNET Methodology
YCNET members agreed on a common methodology based on improvment of youth participa-tion and development of local or transnational youth initiatives based on non formal education.
YCNET goals
Agreements of delegations about recommendations formulated during the differents steps of the project defined common goals to be reach by public authorities in order to support innovative youth policies:
1. To teach from early school the importance of participation, non formal education and coope-rative learning;
2. To provide a large, adapted and affordable offers to spend free time in the town;
3. To develop spaces and services to support youth initiatives and non formal education;
4. To provide job trainings in foreign languages;
Toward a Network Charter
2010- 2011
Euro
pean
Youth
Cities
Net
work
SPAIN (Silla): [email protected] ITALY (Arenzano): [email protected] (Brest): [email protected] GREECE (Megara): [email protected] (Pelhrimov): [email protected]
CONTACTS
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Special thanks to: COOPSE (Italy), Hodina H (Czech Republic), Bureau Information Jeunesse de Brest (France) and Youth council of Megara (Greece).
Communication materials pro-duced by [email protected]