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AGORA is a long term youth project that aims to increase and bring quality and innovation to youth participation at local level. We are 9 partners from 7 different countries including Portugal, Turkey, Malta, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Latvia.
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Universidade do Algarve Campus de Gambelas, Pavilhão A5 8005 -‐ 139 Faro
Tel. : + 351 966669345 Email : [email protected]
www.ecos.pt
PROJECT PRESENTATION
“AGORA -‐ Bringing Quality and Innovation to Youth Participation in Decision Making at Local Level"
-‐ January 2013 to June 2014 -‐
“AGORA -‐ Bringing Quality and Innovation to Youth Participation in Decision Making at Local Level"
Coop
erativa de
Edu
cação, Coo
peração e De
senvolvimen
to, C
RL
1
Consultoria
| Formação
| In
vestigação
“AGORA -‐ Bringing Quality and Innovation to Youth Participation in
Decision Making at Local Level" -‐ January 2013 to June 2014 -‐
Who we are – Coordinating Organization ECOS – Cooperativa de Educação, Cooperação e Desenvolvimento, is a recently established organization by professional youth workers and educators active on structure dialogue on local, national and European level. ECOS has as its main goal of action the promotion of non formal education and social integration. Through our activities, we try to contribute to the development of a more human, sustainable, fair, inclusive, participative, democratic, equitable, solidaire, co-‐operative, dialogical, diverse and integrated society. Our mission is to contribute to the development, nurturing learning, the construction of trust bonds and fruitful alliances among social actors, entrepreneurs and institutions (through dialogue and cooperation) and articulating agendas of action. Our scope of intervention addressed the following points:
• Creation of spaces for structured dialogue, cooperation and collective construction among diverse social, business and institutional actors;
• Promotion, design, implementation and evaluation of playful, educational, social, cultural and sustainable development projects, in formal and non-‐formal spaces, through non-‐formal education, always in a way that it; complements formal education and contributes to life-‐long learning;
• Development of organizations capacity to do a more efficient management of their resources and projects through training and new technologies of information and communication;
• Monitoring, support, assessment and consultancy to individuals, organizations, institutions and respective educational programmes and social intervention projects;
• Promotion, recognition and validation of non-‐formal education and other alternative pedagogical methodologies that contribute to social transformation.
Project Summary The Cooperative ECOS – Educação, Cooperação e Desenvolvimento, having in consideration the challenges that young people are facing today has developed a long term cooperation project. Its aims are to exchange and improve existing approaches based on non formal education methods that support youth participation in decision making processes. We want to create the necessary space to innovate with approaches that increase youth participation on decision-‐making at local level.
“AGORA -‐ Bringing Quality and Innovation to Youth Participation in Decision Making at Local Level"
Coop
erativa de
Edu
cação, Coo
peração e De
senvolvimen
to, C
RL
1
Consultoria
| Formação
| In
vestigação
The idea Today youth lives in a quite ambiguous and demanding society. Young people are receiving contradictory messages; on one hand to be aware of the importance of being represented and be more participative, but on the other hand our society is more individualist and competitive than ever before. Youth is constantly bombarded with information and advertisements, but we request them to also have time to be actively involved in youth organizations and in the civil society in general. These reasons, among others, make us see and understand the actual scenario of youth participation in terms of involvement in the civil society in general, and particularly in the development of youth policies. Youth today feels more and more distant, with a lack of interest in politics but also with a confusion of double messages of the theory and practice of real politics. We believe that it is crucial to develop a new culture of youth participation. We especially must focus in the decision-‐making of the issues that are of direct concern and interest of youth. We should first look at youth as a source of solutions for our society problems as they can contribute greatly to the development of our communities with their energy, creativity and potential. It is fundamental for us to increase the sense of belonging and the active citizenship of young people to their communities and regions. We see this involvement in a broad dimension, where youth has an active voice and is a fundamental actor of their local communities’ development. This kind of youth involvement will enable municipalities and regional authorities to address the needs and interests of youth. At the same time, it will contribute to engage youth as active actors of their problems’ solutions, increasing the level of ownership, compromise and involvement of an important part of our communities that is many times neglected. This process to be sustainable, demands willingness and compromises from both parts, but also the development of knowledge, sharing of experiences and tools to create and to develop further these spaces of shared decision-‐making. This demands the development of strategies, building of structures and relations of trust and cooperation between actors. We want to create a space where youth leaders, youth workers and representatives from local municipalities will be able to cooperate exchanging existing practices, but especially to discuss and address what quality means in regards to youth participation on decision making and how to ensure it in our local realities. With this project we aim to create not only quality standards that can support the implementation of youth participation structures at local level but also to start building new paths for enhancing youth participation in decision making at local level.
“AGORA -‐ Bringing Quality and Innovation to Youth Participation in Decision Making at Local Level"
Coop
erativa de
Edu
cação, Coo
peração e De
senvolvimen
to, C
RL
2
Consultoria
| Formação
| In
vestigação
General objectives To reach the already discussed goals, we are targeting at the following objectives:
• Create or further develop local youth councils in the municipalities of the project promoters, forums or other structures of youth participation on local policies development based on non formal education methodologies;
• Develop a space where youth leaders, youth workers and authorities can increase their competences to develop more effective structures for youth participation on decision-‐making at local level;
• Promote and develop strategies that innovate and increase the quality on structure dialogue at a local level;
• Create a space of learning and sharing existing best practices how youth organizations and local authorities can develop together local youth policies and to bring innovative approaches into such processes;
• Reflect on the challenges and added values of developing youth structures and mechanisms based on non formal education that allows more involvement of youth in the decision making on local level (e.g. local municipalities youth councils or fora);
• Allow youth organization to share and improve their practices in terms of cooperation with local authorities;
• Allow municipalities to exchange and improve their practices with other municipalities in terms of youth participation;
• Contribute to develop a tool-‐kit with non-‐formal education methods and best practices to promote and develop effective youth participation in decision making (Enhancing structure-‐dialogue at the local level).
• Develop a quality charter on youth participation on decision making at local level that can support and guide the future implementation of youth fora and youth councils based on a participatory approach and non formal education methodologies.
Long-‐term Youth Participation Project The project will be divided in a total of 7 phases that will take place during 18 months. 8005-‐-‐-‐139 We believe that for this project’s success we do not only need the compromise of all the partners but also their involvement in developing the overall project adapting it to their realities. It is reflecting the wide range of experiences, needs and expectations of each partner. This project will produce a space for sharing suggestions and recommendations regarding to the project and implement them during. In this line, we plan to have a participatory methodology to design and develop the project together.
“AGORA -‐ Bringing Quality and Innovation to Youth Participation in Decision Making at Local Level"
Coop
erativa de
Edu
cação, Coo
peração e De
senvolvimen
to, C
RL
3
Consultoria
| Formação
| In
vestigação
1. Coordination meeting: all partners at that stage will meet to build a common understanding and to
adjust and develop the following long-‐term project phases. 2. Online platform and website: an opportunity offered to discuss in different fora and cooperate more
directly. 3. Official project launching and presentation: this activity aims to be coordinated among all the project
partners and to take place simultaneously in the different countries of the partners. We aim to let a bigger audience to follow the project and to be able to become also active in it. The project itself will invest in using different tools and social networks to bring closer the non organised young people to the project.
4. Seminar on Youth Participation in Decision making -‐ “The role of non formal education in the development of youth co-‐management strategies at local level”: during 4 days we will discuss, share, reflect and map instruments, best practices and knowledge regarding to the core features of the project.
5. Training course for multipliers of co-‐management structures -‐ “Together bringing quality and innovation into youth participation”: development of competences to efficiently introduce new working methods into local youth councils, youth fora and/or other spaces of permanent structured dialogue at the local level ;
6. Bringing non formal education into the development and implementation of local youth councils & youth forums: during 6 months our project partners together in cooperation with the local municipalities and other local youth organizations will set up and/or implement plans to develop further existing structures improving current practices.
7. Evaluation meeting: It will be transversal to all project activities and will last 2 days. However, we consider relevant to access the project overall results and to visualize where we will need to improve.
Partner Organizations Our partners are organizations that are already or in the process to get involved in cooperation forums with their municipalities and aim to bring new perspectives, working cultures or/and enlarge their range of involvement in the local policy development. A balance and diversity of experience has been ensured in order to have the most effective learning environment for all partners involved.
“AGORA -‐ Bringing Quality and Innovation to Youth Participation in Decision Making at Local Level"
Coop
erativa de
Edu
cação, Coo
peração e De
senvolvimen
to, C
RL
1
Consultoria
| Formação
| In
vestigação
ECOS – Cooperativa de Educação, Cooperação e Desenvolvimento, CRL Email: [email protected] www.ecos.pt
