Topics: Awareness about the European Union; Inclusion of marginalised young people; Quality and innovation of youth work
Action Type: Mobility of youth workers
Countries Covered: 🇩🇪 Germany ðŸ‡ðŸ‡· Croatia 🇧🇦 Bosnia & Herzegovina 🇷🇸 Serbia 🇸🇪 SwedenProject card: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/2021-2-DE04-KA153-YOU-000039325
Objectives
All our organisations base their work on projects and related project based funding. In most cases those projects cannot cover regular costs of organisational staff, facilities and utilities; and all the potential team building activities for / with our volunteers and staff. Also, if we do not get funding for specific project related to the real needs in our community, we do not have resources to organise activities in that direction. Nowadays, there is a huge competition between civil society organisations for funding on tenders organised and quite often it happens that even if the project is well developed and written and there are real urgent needs for such project in community, still projects do not get funding as there are just not enough financial resources available.
With this project, we will try to respond to these needs of our partner organisations (and other interested civil society organisations) through capacity building of theirs by exploring other sources of funding and empowering and encouraging our youth workers for taking actions and enriching their sources of funding for their work with marginalised groups and better impact on inclusion and acceptance of diversity in society.
Objectives of the project:
– To allow for exchange of practices among youth workers from different countries/communities on various aspects and perceptions of marginalisation and inclusion, different insights and perceptions about youth work with marginalised groups and values in those work
– To motivate and empower youth workers for active promotion of combating social exclusion in their activities by respecting values and principles of European youth work for inclusion/diversity and proposed solutions and recommendations for challenges in their project management and fundraising
– To empower youth workers and inspire their innovation and creativity in fundraising and grant application writing for working with marginalised groups, and thus through their work encourage quality exchange between mainstream young people and the ones from marginalised groups
– To explore different possible sources of funding for youth work on inclusion (available and through different offline and online tools) and inspire potential approaches of our organisations partners towards possible donours that they have not approached before this project
– To empower youth workers in understanding and using Erasmus+ and other EU Programmes for their youth work for inclusion and developing their skills in grant application writing for working with marginalised groups within the programmes
– To develop more projects and activities, on local level and within the Erasmus+ and other EU programmes, that are aimed at raising young people’s awareness of everyone’s responsibility in tackling discrimination and marginalisation as well as at promoting the acceptance of diversity and inclusion of groups with fewer opportunities.
Activities
The core activity of the project is – 8 days long training course that was organised in Blagaj, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in June 2022. Project will gather 28 participants, trainers and staff from 5 organisations from 5 countries (DE, BA, RS, HR, SE). Project involves at least 15 out of 28 people with fewer opportunities.
The training course is based on the approach and principles of non-formal education and is designed as an open learning process based on participants’ experience and exchange. A combination of different creative, participatory and interactive methods will be used and designed upon the profile of participants.
All partners will be involved in preparation, implementation and evaluation and follow-up phase and activities during the project, while the preparation team of trainers, facilitators and staff will be comprised of experienced youth trainers and youth workers from applicant and partners from Serbia, Germany, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Impact
The expected results are that youth workers acquire more practical as well as theoretical tools and skills to better do quality fundraising from different sources and online tools. Partners will enter new European level partnerships and will start using more different EU funding programmes than what they were using until then.
In longer term, this will result with increase of quality programmes and activities with marginalised groups and better inclusion and acceptance in society, on local and European level.
Direct beneficiaries – partner organisations and our youth workers:
– The expected results are that youth workers, participants at the training course will get an opportunity for self-actualization through developing the skills, attitudes and knowledge useful in dealing with challenges of writing grant applications and fundraising for intercultural projects dealing with social inclusion.
– Participants will be encouraged and empowered to develop European level projects which tackle issues of social inclusion / exclusion and work with marginalised groups. Youth workers will be empowered for doing quality fundraising from different sources (state, private, own – social entrepreneurship) and through different regular and online tools (social media and other IT communication tools). They will understand the process and be able to lead the development of fundraising strategies in their sending organisations, after participating at the training course and with the help of mentorship of trainers and insights and advices from the publication of the project.
– Partner organisations will get raised capacity and competences of 2 or 3 youth workers (directly, thanks to their participation at the training course) for more efficient fundraising efforts for their general functioning and specific projects for inclusion and acceptance of diversity. The gained competences will be quantitatively measured in the learning reflection that the participants will fill in on the last day of the training course. There one will be able to compare their level of specific competences from before the training course and after the training course. We expect the significant increase of the level of competences gained among participants.
– Closer partnerships and networking among partners and participants in this project will be established, through minimum of 4 European level projects. Partners will enter new European level partnerships and will start using more different EU funding programmes than what they were using until then.
– All partner organisations will get more youth workers empowered and motivated to get active as fundraisers and thanks to the multiplication workshops that their youth workers – participants at our training course – will later hold in the sending organisations for more interested youth workers and volunteers.
– All partner organisations will be more capable and better equipped for developing their fundraising strategies in which they will plan more efficient and consistent fundraising activities, including fundraising from private donors and own income generation – social entrepreneurship activities, besides the state and supranational funding possibilities.
– The partners from Germany, Serbia and United Kingdom – initiators of the project – will also increase their capacities for international trainings, as we expect two junior trainers to be involved in the trainers’ team. The junior trainers will learn from senior trainers and through learning-by-doing will drastically increase their competences to become senior trainers.
*Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.