Call for Leaders – DELEPO 4.0 Strategic Leadership & Organisational Capacity Lab (Urnieta, Spain)

CALL FOR LEADERS – DELEPO 4.0
Strategic Leadership & Organisational Capacity Lab · Erasmus+ KA151 Youth · Project 2026-1-ES02-KA151-YOU-000399989

Application deadline: 30 November 2026 · Activity: 20–28 January 2027 (arrival 20 Jan, departure 28 Jan) · Casa Rural Enbutegi, Urnieta, Basque Country (Spain)

From project implementers to strategic organisational architects. DELEPO 4.0 is the fourth edition of ABARKA ONGD's leadership training course. It is a 7-day residential lab where experienced youth workers stop, reflect and redesign how they lead their organisations, followed by 6 months of online follow-up.

Why DELEPO 4.0? Many youth organisations face the same structural challenges:

• Informal, overloaded leadership – responsibilities sit on 1–3 key people, with no succession plan
• Concentrated knowledge – project know-how is lost when staff leave
• Uneven partner quality – partners chosen on personal ties, with unclear roles
• Reactive planning – chasing calls without a long-term strategy or impact measurement
• Neglected well-being – burnout normalised as "passion for the cause"
• Unregulated AI use – no ethical assessment, data-protection policy or bias awareness

Objectives

• Leadership identity and distributed responsibility
• Governance and annual strategic planning
• Partner quality and ecosystem mapping
• Impact engineering and sustainability
• Ethical and responsible governance of AI
• Well-being-oriented leadership

Methodology: self-assessments, real case studies, simulations and role play, collaborative framework design, peer coaching and mentoring, and a slower pace with 1 hour of daily reflection.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR – 15 ORGANISATIONS

Eligible countries for this call: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Organisation requirements

• A legally registered organisation (NGO, association, foundation…)
• More than 4 years of experience in Erasmus+ KA2 projects (KA210, KA220, Capacity Building in Youth – CBY…), as coordinator or partner
• Commitment to send one participant and to support the transfer of knowledge after the mobility

Participant requirements (one youth worker per organisation)

• At least 12 months of experience as a youth worker
• A member of the organisation's staff or board, with the authority to plan long-term goals and strategy for the organisation
• Commitment to transfer the knowledge to the team once back home – someone from inside the organisation is the best choice
• English level B1 or higher for complex discussions and written reflection
• Available for the whole programme (20–28 January 2027) and the 6-month online follow-up

Diversity: we aim for at least 40% of each gender, 30% of small organisations (fewer than 10 people) and 20% of participants from rural or remote areas.

After the mobility: month +1 evaluation report, Youthpass and first dissemination · month +3 online reunion lab (2 h) · month +6 implementation review webinar · open DELEPO toolkit (EN/ES/FR) and Partner Quality Charter.

How to apply: complete the online form at https://forms.gle/3Uu9XZKVpWUAXV6j6 by 30 November 2026. Full infopack: https://abarka.org/delepo-4-0/ · Video: https://youtu.be/A4sIb7PcEZ0

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Spanish National Agency – Instituto de la Juventud (INJUVE). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.