On 21 April 2021, a five-day online training for experts of the Council of Europe project “Youth for Democracy in Ukraine” in the online format ended.
Thanks to the professional training work of the project's national experts Mariia Yasenovska, Aliona Glazkova, Oksana Salivonchyk, it was possible to create a space for learning and sharing experience and opinions on further work with the teams of communities and youth centres – project partners.
Two research teams of the project, composed of national and international project consultants Max Fras, Viktoriia Bezsmertna, Miguel Angel Garcia Lopez, Nadiia Pavlyk, Liudmyla Kindrat, presented and investigated together with experts the results of mapping youth policy needs in ten pilot communities and conducting surveys on the needs and priorities of fourteen youth centres in Ukraine, which had become partners in the project. The research was carried out in cooperation and with the active participation of communities and youth centres during February-April 2021. Needs were mapped in particular through analysing the participation of girls, women, boys and men in making decisions at the local level.
299 representatives (200 females) of 10 partner communities (decision-makers, young employees, youth leaders) took part in the study of needs in the local youth policy field with a focus on strengthening youth participation and civic engagement.
37 employees and representatives (including 24 females) of youth centres – project partners and 105 young people (83 females) participated in the study on current challenges in providing and strengthening youth participation in the work of youth centres.
According to the study findings, recommendations for communities and youth centres, and activities to build their capacity in order to ensure and strengthen youth participation have been developed. Ten communities and fourteen centres that became partners of the Council of Europe Project “Youth for Democracy in Ukraine” will be able to implement these recommendations with further support from the project experts. In addition, study findings have been taken into account when preparing training for project's experts and have become a source for the development of a curriculum on capacity building in the field of youth policy, youth work and non-formal education with standards and approaches of the Council of Europe in the youth policy applied.
The Project “Youth for Democracy in Ukraine” is implemented within the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2022 and is based on previous experience and fruitful bilateral cooperation between the Council of Europe and the Ministry of Youth and Sport of Ukraine within the Framework Programme on Cooperation between the Council of Europe and the Ministry of Youth and Sport of Ukraine in the Field of Youth Policy for 2016-2020.
The project consists of three components with cross-cutting activities:
10 communities in Ukraine were invited to cooperate within a project in order to take joint measures aimed at capacity building, strengthening youth participation, developing an inclusive local youth policy and implementing the necessary measures in line with the standards of the Council of Europe.
14 youth centres of all levels in Ukraine are invited to cooperate within the project to review approaches in order to ensure that their strategies meet the needs of young people and are in line with the Council of Europe standards on youth civic engagement and youth work.
- Educational activities to build intercultural dialogue and social cohesion and expansion of opportunities for minority groups through youth participation at the local and regional levels.
In 2020 and early 2021, the Project “Youth for Democracy in Ukraine”
- provided mentoring support for participants of a long-term training course for trainers on human rights education for young people from various oblasts of Ukraine to be integrated into non-formal education programmes and youth education for democratic citizenship and human rights education;
- Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe CM/REC(2016)7 on young people's access to rights, Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe CM/REC(2015)3 on the access of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods to social rights were translated into Ukrainian;
- series of “Council of Europe Quality Label for Youth Centres” manuals: “Good practice in youth centres”, “Role, Value and Impact of Youth Centres”, “Quality Management in Youth Centres” was translated into Ukrainian;
- The dictionary of terms used by the Council of Europe in Youth Policy, Human Rights and Nonformal Education was prepared and issued.
Read more about the Council of Europe's project and resources in the field of youth at: https://www.coe.int/uk/web/kyiv/youth-for-democracy-in-ukraine
The Project “Youth for Democracy in Ukraine” is implemented within the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2022 and is based on previous experience and fruitful bilateral cooperation between the Council of Europe and the Ministry of Youth and Sport of Ukraine within the Framework Programme on Cooperation between the Council of Europe and the Ministry of Youth and Sport of Ukraine in the Field of Youth Policy for 2016-2020.
