Work plan 2020

Fostering of youth work and youth participation in disadvantaged areas

Aim and objectives

The work plan aimed to foster civic participation and inclusion of disadvantaged young people by means of development of youth work in rural and/or distanced regions.

The objectives of the work plan were:

to prepare youth workers and provide them necessary knowledge, skills and competences in the areas of youth work, non-formal learning, project development, democratic citizenship, co-operation with local authorities and to motivate and enable them to act as multipliers;
to help youth workers and youth organisations working with disadvantaged young people to elaborate local youth action plans and to take part in development of local youth policy together with local authorities;
to enable implementation of elaborated plans and activities on local level using various non-formal learning methods, and to reach disadvantaged young people;
to promote equal participation of young women and young men;
to add European dimension and values to local youth work.

The work plan foreseen implementation of activities both on international and regional/local levels:

1^st step. International seminar for youth workers.

The international seminar was held in Riga, Latvia from 04 to 08 March 2020 and gathered together youth workers from 8 countries participated in the work plan: Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Ukraine and Russia.

2^nd step. Regional seminars conducted by participants of the international seminar with support of the work team.

Three regional seminars in Estonia, Ukraine and Belarus were carried out in August and October accordingly. The seminars were originally planned for May-June. However due to situation with COVID-19 we postponed the seminars and waited for moment when the situation will be more favorable.

3^rd step. Implementation of local activities to reach target group of the work plan.

Unfortunately, due to the situation with COVID-19 and the postponement of the dates of regional seminars, most of the participants could not start the full implementation of their local action plans this year. Several activities within the framework of the action planes were carried out in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.

4^th step. Evaluation online meeting, summarizing of experience, dissemination of outcomes and discussion of future plans.

Due to the inability to hold evaluation seminar in Riga as planned, the online evaluation meeting was held in November. Team members and several participants took part in the meeting. During the meeting, activities of the work plan – international seminar and regional seminars – were discussed.

The work plan was supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe.