Project place: Egedal Municipality, Denmark
Project dates: 9th – 12th October 2017
Application deadline: 12th July
ABOUT THE PROJECT
This study visit is the first implementation phase of the project “Youth Participation in Rural Areas”, which will involve 21 participants comprising youth leaders, youth workers and youth municipality officers.
The visit to Egedal (Denmark) will allow further capacitation of municipality officers, youth workers and a member of a youth council or other participation mechanisms within the municipality, to work together and implement specific projects of youth participation in rural areas.
The organizers of this project, DYPALL Network and the Danish partner Ung Egedal, assessed gaps as regards current
resources and capacity on developing the inclusive participation of youth from rural areas, at the local level. The main conclusions were that there are insufficient competences of youth workers concerning structures, instruments and methods on how to get young people to participate while taking into account the critical context in Europe. More particularly, there is a lack of advanced competences on how to make the participation inclusive and open for NEET youth, young people from different social, cultural and economic backgrounds. There is also a lack of understanding of local, regional, national and European Youth Policies, lack of advanced skills in developing action plans and youth policies among different stakeholders (youth organizations and municipalities and other decision making structures). At the same time the competences and abilities of youth workers are strongly connected with the effective involvement of young people from different backgrounds in decision-making at local level and these skills and knowledge of youth leaders, youth workers, and municipal officers need to be improved.
OBJECTIVES
- To explore, experience and understand the specific challenges to youth participation in rural and geographically remote areas.
- To visit examples of good practice and based upon interaction with the project organisations, filter out elements to transfer to own reality
- To think of innovative ways of youth participation in rural areas (new technologies, long-distance tools, etc.).
- To offer possibilities for long term partnership building among organisations active in the field of youth participation in rural areas, for future projects.
The project will create a learning space to focus on: (i) how to make rural areas more rural friendly; (ii) increasing young people participation in the decision-making processes, and thus their ownership of the local realities; as well as (iii) on measures to apply during the implementation of selected projects to offer more opportunities to rural youth, to support young families and young people to either stay or return to the countryside and gain their livelihoods through local employment and entrepreneurship, user-driven and self-organized initiatives.
PARTICIPANT’S PROFILE:
- Age above 18
- Youth leaders / youth workers / youth municipality officers
- Have relevant experience in the topic of youth participation at local level
- Highly motivated towards learning about decision-making processes in youth work
- Able to work in English
- Able to attend the entire duration of the study visit
- Willing to contribute with their experience
- Willing to share their experience with CID
We are looking for:
– One local youth policy representative (in either youth, social, education and/or employment policies, depending on the local organizational structure of the municipality), working within the municipality and
– One local professional youth work manager or senior professional working with and for youth and young people with fewer opportunities.
ACCOMMODATION and FINANCES:
All costs related to accommodation and food will be covered by the hosting organization.
Travel costs will be covered up to 275 EUR. The travel costs will be reimbursed according to E+ rules. It will happen upon collecting all tickets and invoices and calculating all costs.
Participation fee: NONE
Sending fee: NONE