2012 – “4th International Youth Meeting: European Citizen – Where are you?” in Prague, Czech Republic, 21.10.2012 – 30.10.2012

Following the 1st Youth Meeting (August 2010 in Heilbad Heiligenstadt, Germany), the 2nd Youth Meeting (May 2011 in Belgrade, Serbia) and the 3rd Youth Meeting (September 2011 in Riga, Latvia) the “4th International Youth Meeting: European Citizen – Where are you?” took place in Prague, Czech Republic from 21.10.2012 – 30.10.2012.

The following organisations are involved in the project:

• Public Information & Need of Knowledge NGO (Armenia)
• Stepanavan Youth Centre (Armenia)
• European Students Forum Baku Public Union – AEGEE Baku (Azerbaijan)
• Youth Exchange Public Union (Azerbaijan)
• JOETZ vzw (Belgium)
• Youth Center “KOSMOS” (BiH)
• International Initiatives for Cooperation (Bulgaria)
• Tmelnik o.s. (Czech Republic)
• European Movment Estonia NGO (Estonia)
• Eurocircle (France)
• Associacion Migration Solidarite et Echanges pour le Developpement – AMSED (France)
• Association “Georgian Youth For Europe” (Georgia)
• Youth Association DRONI (Georgia)
• CULTURE GOES EUROPE (CGE) – Soziokulturelle Initiative Erfurt e.V. (Germany)
• United Societies of Balkans (Greece)
• Youth Education Committees (Greece)
• Associazione Agenzia per la Promozione dei Giovani (Italy)
• TOGETHER MACEDONIA (Macedonia)
• Center For Intercultural Dialogue – CID (Macedonia)
• Institute of Study in Development “MilleniuM” (Moldavia)
• Associação para a Formação e Desenvolvimento do Montijo – CMM (Portugal)
• Asociatia Team Work (Romania)
• Volunteers for Ideas and Projects (Romania)
• Ufa Falcon (Russia)
• NGO “IUVENTA” (Serbia)
• Balkan Initiative for Tolerance (Serbia)
• Asociacion Juvenil Inter (Spain)
• Asociacion MOJO DE CANA (Spain)
• BursArt Training and Youth Association (Turkey)
• All-Ukrainian Association for Youth Cooperation “Alternative-V” (Ukraine)
• Ukrainian Youth Centre (Ukraine)
• Greater Manchester Youth Network (UK)

From the project summary:

“The aim of the “4th International Youth Meeting: European Citizen – Where are you?” was to bring together experts from European level, trainers, leaders and youth workers to discuss the meaning of European Citizenship and youth participation, possible ways to break the issues down for the practice in international youth work and to come up with creative and innovative approaches, ideas and support for practitioners in the international youth field.

Supported by three facilitating trainers the participants were invited to create their own outcomes of the meeting by leading their personal sessions. In conjunction with that the participants developed key competences in practical and theoretical knowledge on the themes:

• Active participation of youth
• Struggling against discrimination, xenophobia and exclusion
• Terms and developments – social exclusion and discrimination
• Experience in focus – antidiscrimination learning processes in youth work
• Youth Unemployment – Youth and entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurship education und key educative constraints to entrepreneurship
• Social entrepreneurship – Important characteristics and competences
• Non-formal education – youth work nowadays; impact for European societies

The program gave the opportunity to discuss practical examples as well as prevailing problems, suggest and communicate non-formal methods in order to use them in practice, show and diffuse good examples of European youth work (Quality & Experiences / Recognition of Non-Formal Education and Youth Work), critically discuss and creative thinking about European youth work and new ways of participation, to improve, document and promote youth projects in future (Networking, partnership building & future cooperation), share experiences with youth participation projects and discuss the issue of quality in order to improve it and to evaluate recent developments. The tight schedule was loose up through visits of the Czech parliament, the visit of the Delegation of the European Commission and a Prague tour guided by homeless people (organized by a young social organization called “Pragulic”). Furthermore the participants got experience of Entrepreneurship through visit of the HUB in Prague City. The conclusion of the meeting is: There is no such thing as a bad idea.”

Further project information are available here. Also an open Facebook-Group for all interested persons was created:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/215107401893354/

The project was realised in the frame of the Youth in Action programme of the European Commission: