Western Balkan Youth Participation Ideas Lab

!! Note that the application deadline was moved to 21 November !! The selection will be made and communicated 22 November.

Young people’s effective engagement in public and communal life is essential for sustaining democracy in Europe. Supporting youth participation in Europe is one of the cornerstones of the EU Youth Strategy (2019 – 2027) and the eleven Youth Goals annexed to it. The Erasmus+ Programme in the field of youth and the European Solidarity Corps are mechanisms to put the Youth Strategy in practice, and they provide young people and youth organisations a variety of opportunities to realise meaningful youth participation from local to European level.

SALTO South East Europe Resource Centre organises the Ideas Lab to put an emphasis on the topic of youth participation in the Western Balkan Partner Countries. The lab takes the opportunity to explore concrete needs, challenges and potential of youth participation in the Western Balkan Partner Countries and seeks for creative ways to address them. The perspective will be on local and regional issues, but links are also drawn to the developments and possibilities at the European level.

The objectives are:

• to explore, identify and reflect youth participation issues in Western Balkan Partner Countries and to find ideas and ways to address them;
• to enable young people, youth workers and youth network representatives to use resources of European platforms when working on youth participation;
• to provide space for co-creating projects and initiatives on youth participation at the local and regional level;
• to offer opportunities for networking, synergising, collaborating and exchanging.

TARGET GROUP

The event is open for professional and volunteer youth workers, youth leaders and youth network representatives and young people (possibly in a pair together with a youth worker) from the Western Balkan Partner Countries, who are keen on improving youth participation in the region. Participants are expected to commit fully to the 2,5 days long activity and have knowledge and experience in working on youth participation in their respective countries. Joint participation of youth workers and young person from same organization and community is welcomed.

Participants must be over 18 years old.

FOLLOW UP

Consultation will be available in early 2022 for participants' local projects on youth participation. Motivated participants will also be given a priority to take part in an international support activitity in spring / summer 2022 for networking and project development within the Erasmus+ Programme and the European Solidarity Corps.

FACILITATORS

The team of facilitators consists of two experienced facilitators within international youth work and youth participation experience: Ajša Hadžibegović (Montenegro) and Katarina Vučković (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

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!! IMPORTANT !!

If the restrictions connected to the still ongoing Covid-19 pandemic will impact on the organisation of and participation in the activity in a way that it would be impossible to implement it residentially, then the lab will take place ONLINE 2 - 5 December.

Covid-19 related information:

Important to know before you apply: organiser will require from participants to strictly fulfil the rule vaccinated-recovered-tested to be able to participate to the seminar.

Thus, by applying to this lab, the applicant claims to be:

- aware of the health risks that he/she takes concerning his/her participation in the activity,

- open to take part in the activity online, if the pandemic situation does not make the offline implementation of the seminar possible (this will be decided at the latest at the time of the selection),

- aware that the organiser does not take responsibility for vaccination and testing of participants linked to their travel to and from the seminar venue.

- obliged to get updated prior to the activity about safety regulations and restrictions in their own country about travelling abroad and back.

- ready to commit to the respective safety rules and restrictions of the hosting country.

N.B.! The organisers will monitor the development of the ongoing Covid19-pandemic, and according to that, if the situation requires it, the activity might be implemented online (at the indicated dates). In case the activity can be realised as planned, the travel, health and safety recommendations in the participating countries will be fully respected. In case of a residential activity, all the participants will be accommodated in single rooms, masks will be used when and where required, and necessary sanitising equipment and measures will be arranged. More information will be provided directly to the selected participants.