Young people in Europe have a lot of expectations and needs, but also concrete ideas and proposals on how to improve their situation at local and European level. But how to make public authorities and policy makers aware of these concerns and help them use young people’s suggestions to shape the youth policy?
YouthMetre project partners have been working to develop innovative e-tools and activities to engage young people and help them influence youth policy.
The Second partners meeting, held in Zaragoza the 13th and 14th of June was the occasion to share the progresses made by each partner in developing the following tools and activities.
The YouthMetre e-portal is the main e-tool that will be used to increase democratic participation of young people within the project. Right now it is available in a pilot form to let partners improving its functionalities, and before the official release it will be undertaken a testing phase of the tool with young people and policy makers.
The e-tool is based on the state of the art research on youth policy and on a data benchmarking review process developed since the beginning of the project. It includes a dashboard of data presented by country which will enable non-experts to get an overview of the situation of young people in Europe and a map which displays good practices that can be taken as example by policy makers.
An additional tool designed to engage young people is My idea for my community, the on line map created to share ideas on how to improve opportunities for youth in their local communities.
During these months, Study Groups have been organized in more than 15 countries across Europe to advise and test the activities of the project and to get data on youth preferences. Through the Study Groups story map, it is possible to follow the activities and, for those events that already took place, it is also possible to get the reports.
CESIE is responsible for the development of the YouthMetre Training course, which will be available in an online form. The training is addressed to trainers, educators, teachers and youth workers and it is aimed at transmitting knowledge on the European Youth Strategy and on the use of the YouthMetre e-tools.
During the meeting, the project partners agreed on the content of the YouthMetre Training course, which is now under development. Training modules cover the following topics: youth participation and YouthMetre approach, EU Youth Policy, good practices and youth perception, YouthMetre e-portal and YouthMetre advocacy toolkit and campaign. The training will be tested at the beginning of 2017 in occasion of the launch of the YouthMetre e-portal.
Do you want to get involved now with YouthMetre?
YouthMetre is financed by the Erasmus+ Programme, Key Action 3 – Support for policy reform and addresses the Priority 7: “Using e-participation as an instrument to foster young people’s empowerment and active participation in democratic life”.
Please visit the YouthMetre website for the latest updates and follow YouthMetre on Facebook and on Twitter.
For further information on the project, please contact Caterina Impastato: caterina.impastato@cesie.org.
