Y.I.E.L.D. in Europe “Youth Ideas Empower Local Democracy in Europe”

The long term volunteer project Youth Ideas Empower Local Democracy in Europe aims to add a set of new skills and knowledge to the participants profiles and improve the overall competitiveness of four young people from four different European countries. The project will introduce them to the local culture and traditions in the small northwest Croatian village of Brtonigla, where they will explore the theme of how the youth ideas empowering the local democratic process, how to raise their understanding and involvement in the process, how to promote encouraging public attitudes toward youth involvement in order to strengthen the quality of the local democratic process, the local social trust and develop sense of belonging, so important for developing an environment for long tern perspectives of the youth.
The traditional low youth interest and attention to the local politics and institutions as a tool to improve the local social environment, the higher regional unemployment, lack of development perspectives and planning of moving to larger urban centers is characteristic of many European regions and is a vicious circle of interdependent and persistent issues resulting in low trust, understanding and desire to get involved and try to influence through the system. The project aims to bring new perspective, more focus and knowledge on the topic from the youth perspective, discuss way to influence the environment, voice and address ideas and good practices from different countries.
During their service period, the four volunteers will gain new skills in the local languages, participate and collaborate with the local youth, community organizations and partners of LDA and will spread the values and culture of the Erasmus plus programme among their peers in Istria, as well in their home countries.
The period of eleven months will allow the local people to get to know better and learn more from and for other European cultures and their good practices in the topic field, while the volunteers will learn through engaging in various activities, learning new and strengthening various useful skills and enriching their knowledge that will make them more self-aware, competitive and motivated to continue their professional or educational path and play active role as young European citizens.