Erazmus+ mobilnosti za aktivaciju NEET - a

Employing European Youth Through Non-Formal Education

Duration:From the 5th to 10th of June 2022, in Madrid, Spain

Project organizer: YPA – YouthProAktiv

Project partners: Active Youth, European Integration Group, Youth On Board, Interkulturalis, Klub Koroških študentov, Hrvatsko drustvo za Ujedinj, EKO and Social innovation and Integration group.

Number of participants: 33

Participating countries: Belgium, Georgia, Greece, Croatia, Turkey, Slovenia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Serbia and Spain

The main aim of the project:

To improve the quality of work with young people across Europe through non-formal education taking into account the challenging times in which members of the category NEET find themselves today. Working with young people can involve their involvement in social and environmental initiatives that will make them useful.

Other project objectives:

Improving the professional competences of youth workers equipping them with the skills, non-formal methodologies and working methods needed in order to successfully implement their activities in the youth work sector.
Equipping youth workers and youth organizations with a deep understanding of the common values inspiring the Erasmus+ program increasing their chances to successfully reach and include the most disadvantaged youth and contribute through non-formal education to the creation of a more inclusive European society.
Increasing the quality of youth work ensuring that the available tools and means to develop their work are successfully used and implemented.
Ensuring the creation of a space for the exchange of best practices that will help them to identify successful initiatives/ projects in favor of their main disadvantaged young target groups.
Increasing the capacity of national youth organizations to operate transnationally and ensuring the establishment of strong and long-lasting partnerships among them.

Project description:

During five days of training, we had the opportunity to strengthen our skills and knowledge related to Erasmus+ projects and apply for KA1 funds.

Day 1. - the group learned about each of the other organizations and got in touch and reflected about the Erasmus+ core values and priorities. We worked through the use of a Personas exercise on different profiles of NEETs, their needs and what youth workers can do to help them. In the end we were introduced to the Youth Pass Certificate and it's importance.

Day 2. - each organization made presentations on best practices regarding NEETs, and explained national context regarding NEETs to the others. Serbia is at the very top in Europe in terms of the number of young people who fall into the NEET categories, the risk of poverty and inequality among citizens. There was a presentation by Adelina Florescu, youth worker at AIDE about her organization, its work and impact.

Day 3. - we exchanged best practices regarding previous applying for funding, and the relationship between our organizations and NA. Lina Trebiene presented the work from Jaunuoliu Dienos CentrasThe trainer on project writing, Paloma Cantero, explained her tips and tricks to successfully write a project application in an interactive session.

Day 4. - we worked in three designing and developing each one KA1 project proposal. There was an extensive work on the official KA1 project outline and learning outcomes and how those would be achieved by the program of activities with the help of the preparatory and dissemination activities. In the last exercise we developed an organization action plan to schedule implementation the dissemination of the knowledge we had gained.

Day 5. - the three groups presented the final KA1 project to the whole group, and received feedback by the trainer.

With this new experience and knowledge, we will be able to foster quality projects that will provide new opportunities for NEETs all over Europe to participate in mobility projects. After this training we have taken a step towards motivating and activating a key group of youngsters who often struggle to engage with their networks and society.