© Social Youth Development - K.A.NE., Kalamata 2015

This booklet was created as a result of the ERASMUS+ KA1/ Mo-bility of Youth Workers seminar with the title “Every Wall is a Door: Inclusion and Employability for Youth with Fewer Op-portunities”,

Editors: Fotini Arapi, Filaretos Vourkos

Graphics: Fotini Arapi

Photos: Fotini Arapi/Agnieszka Lul

Contact DetailsSocial Youth Development - K.A.NE.Address: Plateia Othonos 10, 24100, Kalamata, Greece

E-mail: info@ngokane.org

Url: www.ngokane.org

Tel.: +30 2721110740

Fax: +30 2721095441

Every Wall is a Door

Inclusion and Employability for Youth with Fewer Opportunities

January 2015

Where there is a wall, you can put a door, where you find obstacles…

draw a passage…

Table of Contents

A few words about the project 6

Partners 7

Introduction 8

Challenges faced by the youth 9

The role of youth work and the youth workers 11

The importance of Non-Formal Education 13

Notes 15

A few words about the project“Every Wall is a Door: Inclusion and Employability for youth with fewer opportunities” is an ERASMUS+ KA1/Mobility of Youth Workers seminar that was implemented in Kalamata, Greece from the 7th to the 14th of December 2014. In it participated 26 youth workers, 1 trainer and 1 facilitator from 13 different coun-tries, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, France, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, UK, Poland and Cyprus.

The main aim of this seminar was the exchange of tools and good practices, as well as the creation of methods by the partici-pating youth workers in order to be able to better support and empower the young people they are working with and boost their confidence and sense of initiative, in order for them to be able to adapt and respond more quickly and effectively to the constant change around them, as well as to overcome the feel-ings of unease and uncertainty cultivated by the economic and social crisis in today’s Europe. The main focus of the seminar was activities that foster youth employability and the inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities in the labour market.

Using a set of non-formal education tools and methods (role playing, group work, active dialogue, simulation and experien-tial exercises, etc) participating youth workers talked about the needs of the young people in each country and the challenges that they are facing, compared good practices, discussed about methods and tools to empower and support young people, and especially young NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training) and created new tools and follow up projects together.

Partners

K.A.NE. Social Youth Development, Greece

Regional Union of NGOs, Bulgaria

Udruga mladih PHARIINA, Croatia

Eesti People to People, Estonia

PISTES-SOLIDAIRES, France

Rock Solid Foundation for International youth work, The Neth-erlands

Cemea del Mezzogiorno, Italy

Semper Avanti, Poland

Associacao Mais Cidadania, Portugal

Asociatia GEYC, Romania

Viksjoforsbaletten, Sweden

99%, UK

KEY - Innovation in Culture Education and Youth, Cyprus

Introduction

The aim of this booklet is to gather some of the ideas, conclu-sions, results of the ERASMUS+ KA1/Mobility of Youth Workers project “Every Wall is a Door: Inclusion and Employability for youth with fewer opportunities”.

It contains some main conclusions that we came up with all to-gether regarding the challenges faced by the youth, the role of youth work and the youth workers, as well as the importance of non-formal education.

Challenges faced by the youth

One of the main questions that came up during this project is what are the challenges the young people are facing in the dif-ferent countries.

It is interesting to note that most of the challenges mentioned are challenges facing young people in all of our countries.

Youth unemployment was identified as a major issue in all the participating countries from Greece, with the higher youth unemployment rate of 2014 among participating countries (51.1%) to the Netherlands,with the lowest youth unemploy-ment rate among participating countries (11.9%).

Youth unemployment can have a really negative impact on the young people, increasing passivity, causing feelings of uncer-tainty, impending young people from become independent and active citizens and contributing to the increase of young people leaving their proper countries in search of a better fu-ture.

This can also have a direct negative impact on the countries as a whole, as if young people are not active and optimistic and if they are leaving the country, then who will stay to support, de-velop and work towards a better future for said country?

Finally, youth unemployment is one of the factors that lead to the increase of the second challenge that young people in our countries are facing, namely the increase of young NEETs (young people Not in Education, Employment or Training).

By the end of 2014, the NEETs rate in the EU as a whole (28 coun-tries) in the ages from 18-24 was 16,3%, a rate that increases in the ages from 25-29 to 20,3%. The situation is much worse in certain countries like Greece (26.5% and 39.5% accordingly) and Bulgaria (24.5% and 29.6% accordingly).

Long term unemployment and inability to access education and training opportunities are creating a vicious circle, where people in their most productive age are feeling useless, de-pressed and unable to escape from this situation.

The role of youth work and the youth workers

In order to support and empower young people, and especially young people with fewer opportunities, youth work is essential to every society.

It is important to develop services and policies for youth and create structures which give the young people the opportunity to think out of the box, to create and to make mistakes and im-plement programmes which will offer them the convenience to experiment and experience as many different things as they can and want. Services run by trained people who will respect the uniqueness of each young person and will help them to realise their dreams.

After giving it a lot of thought, we defined the youth structure as:

“a community/entity working with and for young people allowing them to develop personally and professionally and

implementing activities that meet the young people’s needs”.

The Youth Workers are also playing a big role in this, as they are the ones that come in contact with the young people, try to empower them and facilitate their inclusion into, mostly non-formal, training and learning activities that will facilitate their entrance and help them strengthen thei position in the labour market.

During the seminar we asked ourselves what attributes the ideal youth worker needs to have. We think that a youth worker should be, among others:

EASY WORK?

HARDLY!

REWARDING? EXTREMELY!

The importance of non-formal education

As decribed by the European Commission in the ERASMUS+ guide:

“Non-formal learning refers to the learning which takes place outside formal educational curriculum. It has a participative and learner-centred approach; it is carried out by learners on a voluntary basis and therefore is closely nked to young people’s needs, aspirations and interests. By providing an additional source and new forms of learning, such activities are also impor-tant means to improve the attainment in formal education and training as well as to address young NEETs (i.e. young people not in employment, education or training) or young people with fewer opportunities and combat social exclusion.

Non-formal and informal learning enable young people to ac-quire essential competences that contribute to their personal and socio-educational development and foster their active par-ticipation in society, thereby improving their employment pros-pects. Learning activities within the youth field are meant to have a significantly positive impact on young people as well as on the organisations involved, the communities in which these activities take place, the youth field itself and the European economic and societal sectors at large”.

Additionally, according to the Youth European Forum, It is shown that the participation in non-formal education in a for-eign country furthers the development of the linguistic skills, cultural awareness and leadership.

Furthermore, the voluntary activities or the activities organized by the youth organizations play a key role in allowing young people to develop their soft skills. Youth workers can use non-formal learning tools and methods to create and implement

activities that target directly the needs of the young people in developing skills and competences that will ameliorate their position in the labour market.

Non-formal education is inclusive and lifelong. In parallel, when it comes to the labour market, one can notice a shift from the focus on the qualifications acquired through formal education (university degrees, language diplomas, etc) to the more prac-tical, so-called 21st century/tangible skills (communication, col-laboration, critical thinking, team building, problem solving, so-cial and interpersonal/intrapersonal skills and many more) that one can acquire through non-formal and informal education.

Finally, apart from the above, non-formal education and partici-pation in youth work activities may allow the young people, and especially people with fewer opportunities that feel isolated and excluded, to gain a sense of belonging, become more ac-tive in their community and realise the role that they can play for the improvement of their future and the future of the community they are living in.

Notes