1st Regional European Alcohol Policy Youth Conference (REAPYC)

The Regional European Alcohol Policy Youth Conference (REAPYC) is a youth conference, first of its kind that will gather around 50 young people from different countries of the Eastern European Partnership Window (http://ec.europa.eu/youth/orphans/eastern-partnership-youth-window_en.htm) in Chisinau, Moldova between the 16th and 22nd December 2013. The idea of the conference is to build capacity for youth organizations and young people to become advocates of a more comprehensive alcohol policy in Europe. The conference will gather up to 50 participants and will offer parallel sessions focusing on youth research on alcohol, project development and advocacy on alcohol policy. The objectives of the REAPYC conference are to: » host a conference with 50 young people interested in preventing/ reducing alcohol-related harm, » organize plenary presentations with experts, policy- and decision-makers from the region and broader, » organize three parallel workshops on the topics of youth research, project development on alcohol and advocacy for alcohol policy, produce an action plan to tackle the alcohol-related problems in the region in line with European Alcohol Strategy ( http://www.eurocare.org/resources/policy_issues/eu_alcohol_strategy ), » prepare a final publication about the outcomes of the conference, and » prepare at least one follow-up project per country involved. The final publication of our last conference can be found on this link: Bled Youth Paper ( http://www.apyn.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/EAPYCpub_for-CIP_p.pdf ) In order to achieve these aims, the conference will include a combination of workshops, plenaries and training sessions on different skills, delivered by experienced facilitators. The conference also invites experts on advocacy, policy-making, law-enforcement and research on alcohol to exchange their own experiences with the participants. These experts will come from various entities such as World Health Organisation (WHO), European Commission (EC), Netherlands’ Institute for Alcohol Policy (STAP, Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS), Eurocare Members, the Ministry of Health of Moldova, Ministry of Youth and Sport of Moldova and many more. The conference will have three parallel sessions, according to the expertise of the participants: » Project development training course (beginners and intermediate) targeted to young people who haven’t yet worked on the alcohol-related field and the ones who already worked on the alcohol-related fields and would like to develop advanced projects tackling different alcohol-related issues, » Training course for youth researchers (intermediate) aimed to those willing to work on scientific research regarding alcohol use among youth, » Training course on alcohol policy, advocacy and lobbying (intermediate and advanced), aimed for those willing to influence local, national and international alcohol policy. Participant criteria: » a multiplier, transferrer who will be engaged in educational activities in his or her organization, Has the interest in the Alcohol and Youth field, » citizen of one of the following countries: Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria or Turkey, » has ideas, possibilities and willingness to put the gained knowledge into practice after returning home from the conference, » has the basic knowledge of the youth field (knowing today’s youth, their needs and motivation etc.), » able to fully participate on the event (arrival: 16th December by dinner time, departure: 22nd December 2013 anytime), » able to use English as a working language (both oral and written). Supporters: The project is supported by the European Commission – Youth in Action programme, Slovenian Ministry of Health, Ministry of Youth and Sport of Moldova and it is organized in cooperation with the National Youth Council of Moldova (CNTM).