Y-E-N Activity Report 2016 [EN]

Youth Express Network â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Annual Activity Report 2016

Annual Activity Report 2016 Youth Express Network - Annual Activity Report 2016

Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016

The pictures featured on the front page of this report are screenshots from each of the 15 videos produced by the participants of one of our 2016 Work Plan activities: the training course “Voice it: young people tell their story and claim for their rights”, which took place from the 30th of August to the 8th of September 2016, in Groznjan, Croatia. This training was supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and co-financed by the Erasmus + programme of the European Union. You can watch all these videos on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR3LylgKQsdithEvnb9-U2w

Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016

2016: a year for NEW PERSPECTIVES In 2016, Y-E-N’s Work Plan was focused on setting an appropriate perception of young people with fewer opportunities. The objective was to create a safe space for young people with fewer opportunities to reflect on their own life story, to help them identify and recognise their experiences, resources and potential, and to give them tools and techniques to tell their story and portray themselves as they want to be seen. Of course, and as every year for 24 years now, we continued to inform young people about their rights, enabling them to stand up for these, both individually and collectively. This year, we also paid an extra attention on local youth initiatives in order to valorise them and use them as good examples to inspire young people. To achieve these objectives, Y-E-N’s Work Plan for 2016 was composed of 5 activities part of the oneyear project “Angle it Right: New perspective on young people with fewer opportunities”: a study visit on local youth initiatives in the Netherlands (the first in the last 10 years!), a very well received training course on digital storytelling techniques in Croatia, and three regional evaluation and experts meetings in Italy, Georgia and Romania. Aside from these 5 activities, Y-E-N also organised a study session with its long-time partner Rural Youth Europe. 2016 also offered the opportunity for Y-E-N to participate in the second edition of the European Youth Event. Overall, these events gathered 137 participants, coming from 26 countries! At local level, Y-E-N continued its work on employability through its French-German partnerships for vocational schools and work placements abroad. In 2016, 152 students met and exchanged about their profession, and 7 work placements were signed! The regional platform “Alsace Mobility Crossroads” on youth mobility also keeps running under the coordination of the Network. Various cross-border seminars dedicated to French, German and Swiss youth/social workers were organised. We grew again this year and gained 4 new member organisations: Active Bulgarian Society (Bulgaria), Alternative-V (Ukraine), the League for Youth Voluntary Service (Belarus) and Youth for Understanding (Turkey)! Welcome to Youth Express Network! These additions to the Network were officialised during the General Assembly which took place in May and reached 51% of the member organisations attendance! We hope to do even better next year! The GA elected a new Board of 6 members. This year we choose to let young people tell their own story and realise the power they have as individuals and collectively. We recognised local initiatives and showed young people that anything is possible if we work together. Of course, our work would not have been possible without every person who took part in Y-E-N’s activities, so here we would like to thank all of you and congratulate you for your involvement: young person, youth and social worker, Board member, staff, partner, funder, volunteer... Thank you for making our world a more inclusive place! Enjoy reading our activity report 2016 and see you again in 2017!

Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016 SUMMARY

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About Y-E-N a. About Y-E-N b. Board Members and coordination office team c. Vision 2020 d. Activity Plan 2016 Y-E-N activities 2016 a. Work Plan 2016 b. “Angle it Right” 1. “Localise it: Study visit on local youth initiatives” 2. “Voice it: Young people tell their story & claim for their rights” 3. “Brave it Out” in OSTIA-ROME (Italy) 4. “Brave it Out” in TBILISI (Georgia) 5. “Brave it Out” in TIMISOARA (Romania) c. “EYE 2016– The European Youth Event: Together We Can Make A Change!” d. “Dream it Loud!” Study Session Partnership activities 2016 a. Activities supported by the Upper Rhine Conference Cooperation Fund (FR/DE/CH) b. Cross-Border activities (FR-DE) Local activities a. Regional Platform “Alsace Mobility Crossroads” b. Other local partnership activities Communication Strategy Political Representation and Visibility of Y-E-N in 2016 Statutory meetings a. Board Meetings b. General Assembly Annexe: 2017 Work Plan

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Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016

About Y-E-N Youth Express Network (Y-E-N) is a European network of grass-roots youth organisations and social initiatives aiming to work at local, regional and European level on social inclusion of young people. We have 30 member organisations in 23 different countries. Our Board is paneuropean (6 volunteers) and our Coordination Office is based in STRASBOURG, France (3 paid-staff). We organise, since 24 years, training courses, seminars, cross-border projects, mobile projects for youth/social workers and young people with fewer opportunities. We also do researches and studies on youth and social related issues and we try to be the voice of young people with fewer opportunities in local, regional and international European institutions, either by representing them or by supporting them to create and be part of youth councils and local youth policies. We are member of the European Youth Forum and the Conference of International NonGovernmental Organisations (INGOs) of the Council of Europe. In 2016 Y-E-N was financed by:      

European Commission (Erasmus + programme) Council of Europe (European Youth Foundation) Municipality of Strasbourg Local Council of Bas-Rhin Eurodistrict French Ministry of Sports, Youth, Popular Education and Community Life

Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016

Y-E-N Executive board members elected in May 2016 Mirela LUPU

Valentina AULISO

Romania President

Italy – United Kingdom Vice-President

Mariam SAHAKYAN

Vasil TANEV

Armenia Treasurer

Bulgaria Secretary

Ramiz ALIYEV

Katarina VUCKOVIC

Azerbaijan Board Member

Bosnia and Herzegovina Board Member

Y-E-N coordination office in Strasbourg, France

Véronique BERTHOLLE Secretary General

Emmeline KUHN Network Coordinator

Brigitte LUDMANN Mobility Projects Coordinator 2

Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016

Vision 2020 Steps that we made to develop the Vision 2020 Following the decision of the General Assembly of Youth Express Network held in Ostia, Italy in June 2013 to research the needs of our member organisations and the young people they work with, the bureau decided to create a questionnaire. In September 2013 we asked our members to complete this questionnaire, assess the needs of the youth of their country, and propose topics that Y‐E‐N should focus on tackling in the future. During Youth Express Network’s Board meetings held in Strasbourg in November 2013 and Gdansk in March 2014, the Board members compiled and worked on all the input from member organisations, the results from the General Assembly working groups and past strategic documents and produced a paper called “Vision 2020”. This strategic document sets our goals for the 3 years to come. It is updated each year at the General Assembly and approved by vote by the attending members. The “Vision 2020” paper is founded on the values of human and social rights and the principles of non‐formal education, active participation and interculturality. It helps us bring more impact and quality to our work while maintaining the focus on social inclusion of young people. The following version was approved by members’ vote during the General Assembly of 2015, in Milcoveni, Romania. It was implemented through the activities and initiatives of Y-E-N and our member organisations during 2016.

Y‐E‐N Vision 2020 Inclusive society for young people Youth Express Network considers inclusive society a society where young people, their needs and participation are recognised, valued and appreciated.

Goals When establishing the goals to our vision we decided to work on 3 different levels that we identified in our strategy: young people with fewer opportunities, society and our network. We turned the 3 levels into 3 different goals, each of them having different objectives focusing on reaching the needs identified by our member organisations. Every goal has specific activities through which we will reach the goal and fulfill our vision. Goal 1: Social inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities Through this goal and the objectives that subsides it, we wanted to continue to involve in our activities young people with fewer opportunities, youth workers and social workers and to keep the focus on creating opportunities for disadvantaged young people to participate in international activities.

Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016    

Objective 1: Create a definition of social inclusion and young people with fewer opportunities inside Y‐E‐N. Objective 2: Direct work with young people with fewer opportunities on local and international level. Objective 3: Direct work with social workers and youth workers who work with young people with fewer opportunities. Objective 4: Cooperation with other institutions and organisations who work on social inclusion.

Goal 2: Active society towards social inclusion Through this goal and the objectives that subsides it we wanted to focus our attention to the outside, towards the communities that we live in, towards our society. We want them to be aware of the disadvantaged young people and to react to social inclusion.    

Objective 1: Awareness raising on the issue of socially excluded young people. Objective 2: Advocacy and lobbying for social inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities on local and international level. Objective 3: Work towards recognition of youth work and non‐formal education. Objective 4: Community takes action.

Goal 3: Strong network Through this goal and the objectives that subsides it we wanted to focus our attention towards the inside of our network. In order to be able to reach all of our goals and objectives we need to be a stronger network, a network where the quality of our activities is high, where we share experience and competences and where we can collaborate with each other.      

Objective 1: Sense of belonging of member organisations to Y‐E‐N. Objective 2: Expansion of Y‐E‐N in order to reach more disadvantaged young people. Objective 3: Capacity building of member organisations. Objective 4: Improving the quality of Y‐E‐N services. Objective 5: Improve the visibility of the network. Objective 6: Improve the sustainability and financial stability of the network.

Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016

Activity Plan 2016 Goals and Fields

Activities

Social Inclusion

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“Angle it Right!” EYE (European Youth Event), May 2016 Joint-Study Session with Rural Youth Europe “Dream it Loud”, May 2016

Active Society

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“Angle it Right!” Joint-Study Session with Rural Youth Europe “Dream it Loud”, May 2016 Participation in European Youth Forum and Council of Europe activities of 2016 Meetings with local, national and European authorities Services to other NGOs and institutions Follow-up activities of the “Inclusion Express Campaign” “Angle it Right!” Newsletter “Y-E-N News” from 2016 onwards Bureau meeting held in different countries, hosted by our member organisations from 2016 onwards “Y-E-N Waves 2015”: quantitative research on the social utility and impact of Y-E-N activities New internal and external communication (working group) Newsletter “Y-E-N News” from 2016 onwards “Y-E-N Waves 2015”: quantitative research on the social utility and impact of Y-E-N activities

    Strong Network

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Communication

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Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016

Our Work Plan 2016 The 2016 Work Plan was mainly composed of the one-year project “Angle it Right: New perspective on young people with fewer opportunities”. The aim of this project was to address the need of an appropriate perception of young people with fewer opportunities and to turn negative perceptions into a positive one. The perceptions we tried to adjust and improve were both the young people’s perceptions of themselves and the society’s perception on youth. “Angle it Right” was composed of 5 activities which were hosted in 5 different countries by 5 of our member organisations:   

“Localise it! Study visit on local youth initiatives”, was hosted by The Exchangeables in Dordrecht-Rotterdam, The Netherlands; “Voice it! Young people tell their story & claim for their rights” was hosted by Jeunesses Musicales Croatia in Groznjan, Croatia; “Brave it Out! 3 regional evaluation & experts meetings”, a project divided in 3 different events : - The first event took place in Ostia-Rome, Italy, and was hosted by Affabulazione - The second took place in Tbilisi, Georgia, and was hosted by the Institute for Democtratic Changes - The third and last one took place in Timisoara, Romania, and was hosted by FITT

There were 80 participants in total for the “Angle it Right” project. They came from 17 different countries. The project was financially supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the Erasmus + programme of the European Commission.

Y-E-N took part in 2 other activities aside from the “Angle it Right” project: 

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The study session “Dream it Loud! - Build an inclusive society for urban and rural youth”, was organised by Y-E-N together with Rural Youth Europe in cooperation with the European Youth Centre of the Council of Europe. It took place in Strasbourg between the 22nd and 29th of May 2016. Y-E-N also participated in the “European Youth Event 2016: Together We Can Make a Change!”, an event initiated and hosted by the European Parliament since 2014. Overall, 137 young people participated to our activities. They came from 26 different countries:

Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Moldavia, Norway, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

Youth Express Network â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Annual Activity Report 2016

Communication Activity 2016 Since 2014, Y-E-N communication strategy is determined and applied by the Communication Working Group. This group is composed of SAYers, members from our pool of resources, Board members and voluntary participants. In 2016, the group consisted of 5 people who worked on: mailing, social medias, website, coordination and research reports.

New website in English and French!

More visible Facebook page!

General newsletter Y-E-N NEWS - 4 editions per years

Member organisationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; newsletter INSIDER - 6 editions per year

We also produced one of our research reports evaluating the impact of Y-E-N activities of 2015 on the participants and member organisations in a quantitative approach. This report can be found on our website. At the end of the year 2016, the Board decided to create a new position for a communication officer who would be in charge of all the external and internal communication. The position was given to Margaux Dos Santos, who joined the coordination office in Strasbourg in February 2017.

Youth Express Network â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Annual Activity Report 2016

Political Representation and Visibility 2016

Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016

Statutory Meetings 2016 BOARD MEETINGS There were 6 Board Meetings in 2016:      

19th and 20th of March, in Strasbourg, FRANCE 21st of May, in Strasbourg, FRANCE 22nd of May, in Strasbourg, FRANCE 30th and 31st of July, in Timisoara, ROMANIA 23th and 24th of September, Mollina, SPAIN 17th and 18th of December, Oviedo, SPAIN

Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016

GENERAL ASSEMBLY Y-E-N General Assembly 2016 took place on May 22nd in Strasbourg (France) and was facilitated by Ahlame Boubazine, volunteer from our member organisation L’Etage and social worker in Strasbourg. The event gathered 51% of our member organisations, 25 participants in total. Were represented: PRONI, L’Etage, Centrul Voluntariat Resita, Intercultural Institute Timisoara, Falcogroup, Common Sense Youth Organisation, Federation of Youth Clubs in Armenia, Nevo Parudimos, Affabulazione, The Exchangeables, Youth Consultative Center, Institute for Democratic Changes, Active Bulgarian Society, League of Youth Voluntary Service, Youth for Understanding Turkey. The GA welcomed 4 new organisations in the Network:    

League for Youth Voluntary Service (Belarus) Alternative-V (Ukraine) Active Bulgarian Society (Bulgaria) Youth for Understanding (Turkey)

The GA also elected a new Board:      

Mirela LUPU (still in mandate), President Valentina AULISO (re-elected), Vice-President Vasil TANEV (newly elected), Secretary Mariam SAHAKYAN (re-elected), Treasurer Ramiz ALIYEV (newly elected), Board Member Katarina VUCKOVIC (still in mandate), Board Member

Youth Express Network – Annual Activity Report 2016

Work Plan 2017 The last Y-E-N General Assembly in May 2016 in Strasbourg (France) adopted our Work Plan for 2017:

“TOG(AE)THER EUROPE! Living, Working and Shaping Europe Together!” With this work plan, we want to focus on the future of young people through three different but connected areas: living, working and shaping Europe, together. Our aim is to gather Europe under a common goal: building an inclusive society for youth. The objectives of this Work Plan are: -

To encourage young people to redefine their identity as young European citizens and their role in society; To define a way to share a common living space with our differences and similarities as human beings; To take a snapshot on how young people live and participate in local communities; To boost youth participation, youth for youth actions and youth initiatives; To support young people to enter into dialogue with local authorities and participate in the decision-making process; To raise the capacity of our member organisations to fight for social inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities; To recognise best practice examples of lobbying and advocating for social rights; To make policy recommendations to improve access to social rights and social inclusion for all young people; To disseminate the Council of Europe “ENTER” Recommendations.

The three main activities will be: -

A youth meeting: “Living in Europe together: our Challenge!”, May 2016, Thessaloniki, GREECE; A networking activity: “Working together for an inclusive Europe!”, July 2016, Timisoara, ROMANIA; An evaluation seminar: “Shaping Europe together”, November 2016, Strasbourg, FRANCE.

Otherwise, regarding the Y-E-N communication strategy, our goal is to improve the general visibility of the organisation. In order to achieve this goal, the General Assembly decided in May 2016 to create a position entirely dedicated to the internal and external communication. In February 2017, Margaux DOS SANTOS joined the coordination office team as a Communication Officer.

Youth Express Network â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Annual Activity Report 2016

2017 here we come!

Youth Express Network â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Annual Activity Report 2016

This report has been written by Margaux DOS SANTOS from the coordination office of the Youth Express Network. It shows all the different aspects of our activities in 2016. It does not represent the official point of view of our funders.

YOUTH EXPRESS NETWORK Maison des Associations 1a Place des Orphelins 67000 Strasbourg France Tel: +33 3 88 35 37 45 Email: y-e-n@wanadoo.fr Website: youthexpressnetwork.org Facebook page: Youth Express Network