START POINT Community Audit Report about civic engagement barriers and opportunities of vulnerable young adults

Aims of the tool

The purpose served by this Report was to provide a clear picture of the challenges and opportunities within communities of disadvantaged adults in the partner countries to inform the subsequent phases of the project an tailor interventions and learning material effectively.

More specifically, the aims of the Community Audit report were to:

• Provide insights into challenges and needs of underserved young adults in terms of their social and civic integration
• Identify existing good practices and deficiencies in access to education, employment, and civic engagement opportunities
• Offer country-specific and general recommendations to bridge gaps in education and enhance awareness of citizenship rights and responsibilities
• Upskill social actors, facilitators of change, and adult educators to work effectively with disadvantaged adults in civic engagement
• Support the empowerment of disadvantaged young adults as informed, engaged, and responsible global citizens
• Contribute indirectly to all project objectives by informing subsequent phases and interventions

Description of the tool

This tool is a summary report outlining shortcomings, deficiencies, and needs, along with existing good practices in terms of access to education, employment- and civic engagement opportunities, support services, and other aspects that affect the inclusion and democratic participation of disadvantaged young adults in the partner countries (DE, AT, SLO, PT, FI, CY).

This tool represents the comprehensive summary of the partners’ findings on a national level, as detailed in the National Reports.

The national reports were the outcome of a community audit process, consisting of two separate research processes:
The first involved field-research, based on an online questionnaire, with more than 450 responding young adults in total from all partner countries.
The second entailed desk-based research, which encompassed a thorough examination of existing resources, case studies from partner countries, and best practices related to citizenship learning experiences for disadvantaged adults.
Links to the National Reports:
Germany: https://startpoint-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Start-Point_National_Report_Germany.pdf
Austria: https://startpoint-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Start-Point_National_Report_Austria.pdf
Portugal: https://startpoint-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Start-Point_National_Report_Portugal.pdf
Finnland: https://startpoint-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Start-Point_National_Report_Finland.pdf
Slovenia: https://startpoint-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Start-Point_National_Report_Slovenia.pdf
Cyprus: https://startpoint-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Start-Point_National_Report_Cyprus.pdf

Based on the identified needs the summary report also provides both country-specific and general recommendations on how to bridge gaps in current education offers, so as to improve the vulnerable young adults' awareness of their rights and responsibilities as citizens, as well as their ability to participate in democratic processes.

This tool was developed in the context of the EU-funded project “START POINT” (Project no: 2021-1-DE02-KA220-ADU-000026469). The consortium consists of 6 organizations based in 6 EU Countries, KulturLife gGmbH (Germany), CSI CENTRE FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION LTD (Cyprus), Learning for Integration ry (Finland) InterAktion - Verein für ein interkulturelles Zusammenleben (Austria), Rightchallenge - Associação (Portugal), DRUSTVO ZA RAZVIJANJE PROSTOVOLJNEGA DELA NOVO MESTO (Slovenia).

This work ©2023 is licensed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/