HOW IT ALL
BEGAN >>

Role and tasks of Contact Points

The main role of the Contact Points is to assist SALTO SEE in enhancing the visibility of and access to the Youth in Action Programme in the Programme’s Partner Countries in SEE.

Their main tasks include:

• promoting the Programme and enhancing the visibility of the possibilities for co-operation as well as of projects already organised within the frame of the Programme (by using communication channels such as the Internet, newsletters, contacts with media, their own activities etc.) and
• giving information and advice to project applicants and beneficiaries living in the area of the Contact Point about issues related to how to use the Youth in Action programme as a tool for youth work.

Training and networking courses for YOUTH Contact Points

SALTO SEE brings together representatives of all Contact Points in two training, networking (and evaluation) courses, in order to prepare the selected organisations for their tasks and promote networking among them. The first training course was held from 10 - 14 August 2005 in Igalo, Serbia and Montenegro. The second training course was held from 1 - 6 April 2006 in Pula, Croatia.

Towards a Strategy for YOUTH in SEE - Activities organised in 2004

Until 2005, besides SALTO SEE, the European Commission supported several large scale projects aiming to promote the implementation of the YOUTH programme in South East Europe, in particular:

• youthNET, run by the Interkulturelles Zentrum in Vienna
• Balkan Youth Project, run by the European Youth Forum, Brussels, and Care International, Bosnia and Herzegovina
• ICYE Information project, Brussels
• Community Arts - Between the Lines of SEE, Berlin.

In 2004, the European Commission asked SALTO SEE to initiate and co-ordinate a process that would encourage a more effective use of the existing human resources of these different YOUTH projects for the benefit of the YOUTH programme in South East Europe as a whole.

AIMS of the process:

• to valorise the achievements of the existing initiatives,
• to encourage stronger dialogue between main governmental and non-governmental actors in the youth field about the YOUTH programme as a tool for developing youth work, European youth co-operation and youth mobility - as a basis for the further implementation of the Programme in the countries of this region of Europe,
• to support further training of and networking among YOUTH programme multipliers,
• to initiate and develop a more strategic approach for the further implementation of the YOUTH programme in South East Europe,
• to give a clearer sense of purpose to the various local, national and regional actors working for the YOUTH programme in the countries of South East Europe,
• to increase the accessibility of the SALTO-YOUTH South East Europe Resource Centre in the region, which up to now has been limited in its operations by the lack of direct contact points in the countries.

In this framework, the SALTO SEE Resource Centre organised the following activities:

I. Valorisation and strategy building seminar

The seminar was organised in co-operation with the office of CAREInternational in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It brought together the regional partners of the above mentioned projects in May 2004 in Sarajevo. The seminar aimed at valorising the achievements of these projects, as well as developing joint strategies for the future to ensure sustainable results of the investments done so far.

II. National/regional meetings on the YOUTH programme

As a follow-up to the seminar, SALTO SEE co-ordinated and supported a process of joint strategy building at national level. Teams of partners (NGOs) from the same country organised a "YOUTH information and development meeting" during the autumn of 2004 bringing together some 20 – 30 interested actors in the field of youth from their country to identify and discuss proposals for further activities aiming to strengthen the implementation of the YOUTH programme in their country, and in South East Europe as a whole, in the years 2005 - 2006.

III. Regional follow-up meeting

The meeting was organised in November 2004 in cooperation with CARE International BiH and brought back together representatives from each country of the region that had held, or were planning to hold a national meering on the YOUTH Programme during the autumn. Also representatives from the other main European projects implemented in the region were invited (Balkan Youth Project,ICYE,YouthNET). This meeting aimed to share and asses the main outcomes of the different national meetings and to collect the major recommendations made for follow-up action in and with the countries of the region.

Major recommendations included the setting up of Contact Points for the YOUTH programme in SEE, the possibility of direct applications the YOUTH programme grants for organisations from SEE, the organisation of more support activities in the region and the translation of mroe information materials into the languages of SEE.

The full report of the whole process can be downloaded below. Because the document is very large, it has been split up in several parts according to the different activities organised, which can be downloaded separately.

The following downloads are available:

Second call for Contact Points (138.1 kB)

Application for Contact Points (95.5 kB)

Final Report-Content and introduction (190.7 kB)

Valorisation and Strategy Building Seminar (3139.5 kB)

Summary of questionnaires that participants completed (145.6 kB)
Participants of the Valorisation and Strategy Building for YOUTH in SEE seminar completed a questionnaire asking them about their views of the situation of young people, youth work and youth policy in their country (in SEE).

Reports of the National Meetings (10021.3 kB)

Regional Follow-up Meeting (355.8 kB)

Author: Katja Spur / Contact: / Last modified: 2010-02-18

Link directly to this page: http://www.salto-youth.net/SEEstrategy/