Let's Strategy
For the first time in the history of the EU youth programmes, the Youth in Action Programme that started in 2007 included very deliberated action, focusing on cooperation with young people and youth organisations from outside of European Union. The Action was named "Youth in the world" and numbered with 3.
As the regional SALTOs focus on cooperation with the Neighbouring Regions of EU, namely Euromed, South East Europe and Eastern Europe & Caucasus, their support for the development of this new Action 3 was very natural. Moreover, Action 2 - "European Voluntary Service", that is also hugely supporting cooperation with the Neighbouring Countries, remained in the strong focus of the regional SALTOs' activities.
Taking into consideration the potential influence of Actions 2 and 3 on the youth cooperation with the Neighbouring Regions, in 2007 the regional SALTOs Euromed, SEE and EECA together with European Commission and hosted by the French National Agency organised the seminar "Let's MEET our Neighbours and the World". At that time we wanted to organise a big kick-off seminar that would open possibilities for cooperation with the Neighbouring Countries and the World within the Youth in Action Programme, Action 3.
The following year, in 2008, the regional SALTOs cooperation developed further, and together with the National Agencies of France, Poland and Slovenia, we organised a second stage of "Let's..." events - "Let's WORK with our Neighbours", hosted in Slovenia. The aim of this multidimensional seminar was to develop further high quality projects within the priorities of the Youth in Action Programme.
In 2009, the time to EVALUATE the cooperation between partners from the three Neighbouring Regions of EECA, SEE and Euromed as well as Programme Countries had come. A third seminar called "Let's EVALUATE with our Neighbours" took place in Poland.
You may read about the experiences of the "Let's" long-term strategy in this BOOKLET
Even though the Let's idea had gone through a full cycle between 2007 and 2009 - from partner matching to evaluating cooperation, the regional SALTOs decided to continue the successful collaboration, to include new partners and to change the format of the activities.
In 2010, each regional SALTO in cooperation with a thematic SALTO Resource Centre and National Agencies network developed a training on specific topic of relevance for all regions. They represented three parallel unique long-term training courses called "Let's TRAIN with our Neighbours", involving participants from all Neighbouring Regions:
- SALTOs EuroMed and Participation focused on Civil Society, Participation and Democracy
- SALTOs South East Europe and Training & Cooperation focused on Recognition of non-formal learning, a training leading to publication of the handbook Unlocking Doors to Recognition
- and finally SALTOs Eastern Europe and Caucasus with SALTO Cultural Diversity focused on Peace Education
After each training there was a few-months-long phase of coaching participants to help them to create and run their own projects in their fields of interest. All participants and institutional partners then met again in a follow-up seminar in the end of 2011 during the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union to share and evaluate their learning outcomes from this training.
Finally, in 2012, the Forum “Youth Cooperation Beyond Borders" brought together various stakeholders in Baku to explore the impact of the Youth in Action Programme in the frame of the cooperation with the Neighbouring Partner Countries.
