In relation to the Youth Council initiative that the Municipality of Trikala will implement via NEUEYT project a very important event took place. Taking into consideration that the final poll which will establish the first youth council of the city of Trikala will take place the following days, the Municipal organizing committee with the support of E-TRIKALA had the first meeting with the youngsters.
On 3 of November 2022, all youngsters that have registered for the youth council were invited to the City Hall to meet with the president of the Municipal Council, the organizing committee and other members of the city council in order to discuss about the next steps in implementing the first youth council. What is more, the structure, the organization, the individual departments of a Municipality as well as the obligations and characteristics of a council were presented to the youngsters by the authorities.
On 2nd of November 2022, Poraka Nova held the first stakeholder meeting in Ohrid, N.Macedonia, in the Youth Center of the municipality of Ohrid and had a chance to promote the NEUEYT project and the initiatives that are implemented on the local level in the country (Self Advocacy Influencers, We&US Panel, Silent Debate) and more over to speak with the young people and relevant policy makers about the youth participation in the democratic process and how under represented youth can be more active and involved, with focus on economic participation and employment as one burning issue that concerns the young people in North Macedonia. The event atended by 66 participants from which 1 representative from the Agency for employment of North Macedonia, 1 representative from the municipality of Ohrid from the sector education, 1 representative from the Agency for local development from the department youth development, 6 high school professors, 3 youth workers from the Youth Center, 3 representatives from other local NGO’s, 1 media outlet representative and 50 young people students from high schools and university students. The representatives from Agency of Employment and from the municipality presented their programs and opportunities that they are creating for young people in order to be more participative in the democratic process, the young people had a chance to hear about the youth guarantee program directly from the them. Open discussion through role play methodology was conducted where many young people had an chance to express their opinion, to propose potential solutions and say what types of tools / opportunities they need in order to be more active and participative in the democratic processes.
One of the most important barriers for the active participation of young people to civic life is the lack of a clear understanding on how to approach topics that are highly interested in and present them to relevant stakeholders and policymakers.
In that sense, the Six Steps initiative suggests an innovative methodological approach that could be equally used by both youth and policymakers. During the first transnational online workshop designed in the framework of the Six Steps initiative both groups were introduced to the methodology through interactive sessions based on participatory group-work.
The workshop took place on the 5th of October with more than 30 participants from Greece, Cyprus, France, and the Republic of North Macedonia. The vast majority of the participants were young people interested in the methodology but also educators, civil society organisations, representatives from partner organisations, and other stakeholders were involved.
The workshop revolved around the question of active citizenship and suggested the methodology of the 6 Steps as an effective problem-based, learning process to kindle young people’s interest around civic matters. Particularly, participants were firstly introduced to each other through an interesting icebreaker activity. Then the main objectives and goals of the NEUEYT project were presented followed by The Problem Tree activity, that is an interactive group activity in which the participants explored more the deeper roots and consequences of the lack of youth active participation in civic and democratic life.
Furthermore, the main facilitator from Hub Nicosia introduced the Six Steps initiative, and all participants engaged in interactive activities to learn more about this methodology. Participants were divided in groups and tried to put the steps in the correct order. After presenting in plenary their ideas, participants learned that the Six Steps methodology is rather flexible and most of the steps are interchangeable. However, it is important to follow the suggested order as it supports our goal to bring to the fore important issues that affect the lives of young people in their communities. Additionally, participants were divided again in different groups and discussed the definition of a step that was assigned to them. Six different groups gave interesting definitions for each step, and they all agreed on the main elements of each step. For more information about the methodology and the Six Steps, you can visit the initiative page here.
All participants were really excited about the workshop as they shared during the final reflection round and very eager to continue with the local workshops where they will develop their intervention plans that will later implement at the local level. Stay tuned for more gripping news to come!
After 5 months since launching the initiative and starting of the training course for Self Advocacy Influencers Initiative we are happy to share that this activity was successfully implemented by Poraka Nova, in North Macedonia. Last week all participants, mentors and trainers had an online meeting where the websites that were created during the course were presented and we spoke about how they promoted the blogs, the content and how did they managed to reach out to relevant policy makers and stakeholders. Additionally, Poraka Nova will promote the outputs of the initiative even further to other stakeholders and encouraged the participants to continually create valuable content and keep up the good work. All participants promoted and disseminated their blog on social media and as well with direct mailing to relevant stakeholders, NGO’s, public institutions and associations. Poraka Nova also prepared certificates in order to celebrate the successful participation of the young people and mentors who supported the youngsters during the whole process. You can check the blogs that our Self Advocacy Influencers created: https://soknigadouspeh.siterubix.com/ https://inkluzivensport.siterubix.com/ https://kikorevolucija.siterubix.com/ https://patotnaigor.siterubix.com/ https://iskustvotonaace.siterubix.com/
Check out the achievements of SAI below.
I am young person with down syndrome coming from village near Struga, I was lucky to be invited to apply for this initiative and with help from my mentor and trainers to learn many things, tools on how to create medium for myself in order to self-advocate for people with intellectual disabilities
Igor Shajnoski
I am happy that I participated in this project, one of my imagined versions for me was to learn more about digital tools and web design in order to advocate for things that are important for young people who are not so repsresented. I’m happy because thanks to this project I met my mentor Martina who was strong support.
We are happy to share that our partners from Norway during September and October started the implementation of the Voice up initiative in their community and already organized 3 meetings with young people stakeholders, major, politicians, educators, artists and representatives from Agder. The events took place at the Lillesand Town Hall on (7 September, 14 September and 12 of October).
37 people participated on these events where Voice Up Iniative first was presented and they started to work on the implementation of the initiative. The objective of this initiative is to enable young people to point out the best and worst places in the city and compare their daily commuting and living in relation to where they live.
During the first meeting it was emphasized mainly on different ways of communicating a message by photos and videos. The participants started with an introduction for both the activity and its purpose before the filmmaker John as one of the presenters, held his presentation regarding communication. The youngsters were heavily involved; they asked questions and brought ideas to the table. After the presentation they were told to film a “thing” of their own choice. They were divided groups of 2-3 and began their brainstorming. Most of them went outside and started filming. When they got back inside, they showed some ways of editing, and were then given some time to do this. All participants watched the videos and brainstormed together what they could focus on until next meeting. They were given an instruction to make a 1-4-minute-long video built on what they had just filmed and show it next meeting. The youngsters seemed to enjoy the Voice Up-activity and had a lot of laughs together.
On the second meeting continued the work from last meeting, by watching the videos they had made the previous week. They had done a really good job and were very enthusiastic! During this meeting there was a discussion what they could do to make their videos even better, by perhaps being more specific with their message, adding music and such. After brainstorming together and extracting new ideas, some of the youngsters went outside to add to their video, whilst other started editing. At the end of the evening, all the youngster had their videos finished or nearly finished. Some of them made some changes during the next few days, and then sent the finished videos to the coordinators. They produced 5 different movies with very different topics.
The third meeting was reserved for youngsters to present their videos to the city council of Lillesand municipality. The five short films they had produced showed a variety of subjects. The politicians were enthusiastic about this way of presenting subjects that are important to youth. Several of the youngsters concrete suggestions were noted, and the politicians promised to follow up these suggestions. Also, the youngsters and politicians had a fruitful debate on how they can engage young people more. The mayor said he wanted to follow up by going to the schools to communicate more directly with the young people in Lillesand municipality.
