Project Snapshot
Project name: Youth In Action – On the Move!
Project type: Youth seminar
Organisers: Asha Foundation
Location: Gloucestershire, UK
Number of participants: 32
Participating countries: UK, Italy, Estonia, Poland and Germany
Project duration: 6 days
Size of grant: €19,155
Outcomes: Understanding and influencing policy, participatory decision-making, communication skills, CV building, networking, European citizenship, solidarity
The European Union has announced it plans to double the funding for education and youth programmes, once the current schedule comes to an end in 2013. This potentially means big changes for Youth in Action, like a new set of priorities or even a merger with other educational mobility programmes.
Adrian Locher from the Asha Foundation explains how the On the Move seminar ensured that young people fed into the future of European youth policy.
“It’s important that young people were consulted on what these youth programmes should be delivering at a pivotal time in their creation. We invited youth leaders, policy makers and experts in the youth field from five EU countries to The On the Move Seminar, to capture their opinions and inform the discussions.
For six days policy makers, experts in the youth field and young people discussed the current programme, and how successfully they felt it was meeting its objectives. To give variety to the discussions and stimulate debate we used a range of working methods to gather opinions, including working groups, evaluation questionnaires and one on one meetings.
Recommendations were made in areas as diverse as the focus of the programmes, the nature of the support applicants get and the application process itself. A report containing all the recommendations was circulated amongst senior policy makers across Europe.
Apart from shaping the future youth policy of Europe, the young participants gained hugely in confidence and got a senior view of youth policy across Europe . I think many were surprised at just how much interest the policy makers took in their opinions.