TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Kateryna Zeziulina
The Regional Youth Centre of Adjara region organises Youth Dialogue 2023: Enhancing youth participation in democratic life with the aim to promote effective mechanisms and tools in advancing youth participation in democratic life at local, regional and national level, to share good practices in addressing barriers and challenges to youth participation and facilitate dialogue and cooperation between youth and other stakeholders. The forum is organised in partnership with Youth Agency (Georgia) and in the framework of the Council of Europe project Youth revitalising democracy.
The objectives of the forum are to:
• develop a shared understanding of youth participation, exploring existing standards at European level, as well as necessary conditions and possible forms of youth participation.
• discuss and map challenges and barriers hindering youth participation in decision making.
• strengthen the capacity of participants to support inclusive youth participation in democratic life at local and regional level.
• provide space for sharing good practices (policy initiatives, programmes, structural mechanisms) and tools for effective youth participation.
Trainers' team consisted of 2 Georgians and 1 Ukrainian team members. Participants were 50 young activists from Georgia, Italy, Netherlands, France, Armenia, United Kingdom, Germany, Slovakia, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Belgium, Estonia, Slovenia.
The forum was a mixture of non-formal and formal education approaches. The sessions were designed to address participants experience and create opportunity to learn from it in an interactive way. Mostly group work, individual reflection and parallel discussions were used. While research presentation and panel discussions were mostly formal methods of interaction. However, variety of methods ensure better engagement of the participants.
The main result of the event is the shared realities of the participants, improved understanding of youth participation and its standards on European level, raised awareness about the importance of youth participation and its connection to the level of democracy in the country, mapped challenges and barriers of youth participation in member states, shared good practices and tools of youth participation in Europe, established network of youth activists and youth leaders, given opportunity to address certain issues to the stakeholders. Additionally, the participants drafted recommendations to the Council of Europe, central government, local government, educational institutions, NGOs and citizens to improve youth participation in democratic life at local, regional and national levels.
1. Participated in the preparatory meetings, on the dates to be agreed with the organisers and the Council of Europe.
2. Supported the preparation of the programme, by proposing programme elements and related methodology.
3. Prepared session outlines detailing programme elements, in agreement with the other team members and the project coordinator from the Council of Europe.
4. Facilitated plenary sessions, workshops and working groups in the programme as agreed within the team.
5. Introduced participants to key standards of the Council of Europe in respect to youth participation.
6. Developed an evaluation form for participants to complete at the end of the activity and compile the results.
7. Coordinated the work of the team of facilitators and secure communication with the Council of Europe secretariat and the organisers.
8. Contributed to the evaluation and reporting of the activity by completing an activity report (with input from other facilitators) and a trainer evaluation form. The report should include an overview of the activity (aim and objectives, programme, methodology, participants), results of the activity, and recommendations stemming from the activity.