Building youth competence through wellbeing

The project Building Youth Competence through Wellbeing is a Small-scale Partnership in the field of Youth that focuses on strengthening young people’s initiative, active participation and life competences by linking mental and physical wellbeing with non-formal education.

The partnership will bring together youth organisations working with diverse young people, including those with fewer opportunities. Through a combination of transnational cooperation and local implementation, partners will co-create and test practical methods that support young people to make decisions, take responsibility, collaborate with others and actively engage in their communities.

The core activities include one transnational meeting for youth workers, where partners will exchange practices and jointly develop a Youth Competence & Wellbeing Toolkit, as well as online coordination meetings throughout the project. Each partner organisation will then implement a series of local workshops with young people, using experiential, creative and participatory methods such as body-mind awareness activities, cooperative challenges, decision-making scenarios, initiative-building tasks and reflection sessions.

The training approach is non-formal, learner-centred and inclusive, focusing on competence development rather than therapy or awareness-raising alone. The project treats wellbeing as a foundation for action and participation, enabling young people to build self-awareness, communication, teamwork, problem-solving skills and civic engagement. Project results will be shared through local dissemination activities and made accessible to other youth workers and organisations.