Andrei Popescu

Current occupation

mainly free lancer

Work experience

I was involved in the last 20 years on more than 50 international and 200 national training courses, seminars, conferences and other types of learning events as a trainer, facilitator, organizer or speaker on the following themes:
- project management
- application writing
- nonformal learning methods and tools
- Erasmus+
- Youth in Action
- teamwork and group dynamics
- volunteering
- youth participation
- youth policy
- social inclusion
- coaching, mentoring and leadership
- negotiation
- networking
- training of trainers
- youth policies
- advocacy
- communication and presentation skills
- organizational culture
- Karl Popper and Parliamentary debate

Workplaces and results:

Romanian National Agency (February 2018 - June 2023)
- Head of Youth department (1.01.22 – 30.06.23)
- Head of European Solidarity Corps department (8.02.18 – 31.12.21)
- Head of the Communication department (8.02.18 – 1.11.19)

Freelancer from January 2017 until February 2018, and again from July 2023.

Secretary of state for youth affairs - Ministry of Youth and Sports in Romania (December 2015 - January 2017)
Main roles:
Managing the Youth Affairs in the Ministry
Developing and following-up youth policies in Romania
Cooperation and consulting youth stakeholders
Inter-ministerial cooperation
Over-all coordination of activities and events

As Secretary of state I found myself in the position to coordinate the overall project and activities. The most important for international work would be:
- representing Romanian twice at the European Council of Youth Ministries and once at the Council of Europe
- setting up and launching in 2016 the second stage of NoHate Speech campaign in Romania (at European level the campaign is managed by Council of Europe) where the following activities were carried out: 1) selecting the National Coordinating Committee (containing nine NGOs), 2) organizing the 7th edition of the Nonformal Education Lab, this time with NoHate Speech thematic, 3) supporting and organizing in partnership with Nevo Parudimos the Roma Young People Forum against Hate Speech, 4) organizing Educators against Hate Speech - a regional training course on how to use Bookmarks handbook (international event) 5) national online campaign for the Human Rights Day in order to promote NoHate Speech via Facebook cover pictures that were placed on the Facebook pages of the Romanian Government and 17 ministries reaching more than 500.000 people
- as legal representative for National Structured Dialogue Group support project that led to setting up a national 120 youth workers network organizing more than 150 consultation events all over Romania attracting more than 2500 participants. The events used methods such as world coffee in order to gather grass root information related to the EU Presidency or open space to identify the needs of the young people to be put forward as priorities during the 2019 Romanian Presidency of the European Union Council
- initiating a post-graduated university course for youth workers: "Management of educational resources for youth". The course will be run by the West University in Timisoara starting with the second semester of 2016 - 2017 university year.

Communication and Promotion Department Coordinator - Romanian National Agency for Eramus+ (January 2014 - December 2015)
Main roles:
Team coordination
Erasmus + promotion and information
Dissemination and exploitation of results
Strategic management
Training and facilitation (including coordination of the National Trainers Pool)
Networking
Online tools development

Coordinator Youth in Action Romania - Youth in Action National Agency (November 2006 - December 2013)
Main Roles
Team coordination
Program management and coordination
Strategic management
Funds granting (more than 30 millions euro in 7 years)
Over-all coordination of the National Trainers and Multipliers Pools
Networking
Project and event management
Training and facilitation
Online tools development

As former coordinator of the Youth in Action program in Romania and the Communication Department of the Erasmus+ National Agency one of the main tools I had to work with was the Training and Cooperation Plan (TCP) and Transnational Cooperation Activities (TCA). In this role I planned and organized together with my team more than 150 national and international events in order to build up capacity building for organizations.
Among the international events there were organized:
- BiTriMulti (BTM), Advanced Training On Quality for youth exchanges (ATOQ) or TC Eastern Express 2012 for Youth Exchanges
- Coach2Coach or GetInNET for Youth Initiatives
- SOHO (Sending Organizations, Hosting Organizations), InclusivEVS, MoveOn for EVS, YESforEVS, or UNIQUE TC "Facilitating the volunteers learning" for mentors in EVS projects,
- Get Involved! for Youth Democracy Projects
- ToolFair IX, TicTac, YouthPass related TCs, The Power of Non Formal Education, Competences for all, or GivePOWER to EMPOWER for youth workers,
- ECTC (European Citizenship TC)
- Appetizers
- Partnership Building Activities
- Cultural Diversity TC,
- Capital Europe supporting the title of European Youth Capital 2015 for Cluj Napoca
- Strategic Partnerships Plus for Erasmus+ strategic partnerships
- CONNECTOR for promoting effective learning tools among youth workers, teachers and learning practitioners

Among the national activities building the capacity building of the Romanian youth organizations with impact at European level the most important would be:
- setting up a National Pool of Multipliers (2007 - 2010) promoting the Youth in Action opportunities
- setting up a National Pool of Trainers (2007 - present) both for Youth in Action as well as for Erasmus+ organizing almost 1000 training courses all over the country on the following topics: application writing (general on Youth in Action or Erasmus+ as well as dedicated to specific actions), project management, EVS related TCs (Pre-Departure, On-Arrival, MidTerm and Final Evaluation), nonformal learning tools, volunteer management, dissemination and exploitation of results, Leader2B, Coach2B, Mentor2B, strategic management, setting up an NGO, inclusion and participation related TCs)
- organizing six editions of the Nonformal Education Lab aiming to train youth workers on using effective nonformal learning methods
- developing together with various partners NGO and Advanced Suppport Organizations system of EVS (ASO). Part ot it there were organized several editions of VOLUNTEQ (event dedicated to EVS hosting and sending organizations as well as for volunteer coordinators and mentors aiming to build skills by peer learning through barcamp method), it was developed tinapse.ro, an online community set up to share good practices for EVS
- developing learning practitioners communities for youth exchange leaders, youth initiatives coaches, EVS mentors and trainers (both real life in several organizations as well as online through tinapse.ro)
- developing a online portal for nonformal learning (nonformalii.ro) that gathered effective learning methods as well as a online community for nonformal actors.

Speaker and member in various projects, Working Groups and Commissions at AEGEE Europe (October 1999 - May 2004)
Main roles
Socrates on the Move project officer (October 1999 - December 2000)
Speaker of the Education Working Group (May 2000 - May 2002)
Member (May 2000 - May 2001) and Speaker (May 2001 - May 2002) of the Network Commission
Member of the AEGEE Academy - Human Resource Working Group (October 2000 - May 2004)
Coordinator of the YnterACT project (May 2003 - May 2004)
Grundtvig (Adult Education) Assistant Manager - Socrates National Agency (September 1999 - March 2007)
Main roles
Program management
Funds granting (summing up 3 million euro in 7 years)
Event management
Training and facilitation

Volunteer, trainer and president - AEGEE București (September 1998 - September 2003)
Main roles:
Strategic management
Events and project management
Training and human resources
Representation at the European level

Volunteer, trainer and coach - ARDOR Romania (Romanian Association of Debate, Oratory and Rhetoric), April 1997 - September 2001
Main roles
Debate club development (3 student clubs created and developed)
Managing and facilitating the weekly meeting for the debate clubs
Karl Popper and Parliamentary Debate
Training debate coaches at national level

Other relevant activities
- lecturer at the Alternative University for the Experiential Learning course (2014 - 2015)
- lecturer at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science for the Nonformal Education course (2016)
- initiator of the NoHate Speech campaign in Romania (2016)
- coordination and development of the nonformalii.ro, the main portal of nonformal learning tools in Romania
- coordinating the team of contributors for the "Like skills methods and tools to be used in the classroom" (2010 -2011 European funded project)
- expert and writer of the report of the European Economic and Social Committee on the European Youth Strategy (2009)