ERASMUS+, nr KA220-YOU-C70942A0 (2024-1-FR02-KA220-YOU-000245435)
Project Streets for the Youth will engage local authorities and young people aged 15-20 from 4 EU countries (Portugal, France, Belgium and Poland) in building a vision of the city of the future - a city that is flexible, friendly, and resilient, and meets various user needs. It will create connections between young people, urban planning specialists, and local councilors, so they can jointly develop and test consultation techniques for public space development projects.
The cities of tomorrow will not be like those of yesterday. Both small and large cities must change as they face significant transformations: ecological, demographic, mental, and digital transitions. To adapt cities to the world of tomorrow, it is essential to involve their residents, especially young people. Addressing the placement of young people in public spaces is like "opening a window" to see where young people are, how they move around the city or countryside, and how they use these spaces. To achieve this, we must consider the diversity of young people (mobile and non-resident, spaces for girls, etc.), design spaces that address them as a whole, not just for recreational purposes, and finally, ask for their input by recognizing their knowledge of usage (acknowledging their understanding of the city) and by listening to and considering their expectations for the future. Young people can help us respond to the challenges of transformation and prepare our cities for the world of tomorrow.
Project Objectives:
Exchange, develop, and test techniques to engage young people in thinking about their city's future and in its planning, and encourage cooperation among three groups:
YOUNG PEOPLE: To participate in democratic life and think about communal living by expressing their vision of the city today and tomorrow (usage, needs, challenges to be addressed).
ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES: Decision-makers and local government employees to include public space users, especially young people, in the process of creating or redeveloping public spaces.
YOUTH PROFESSIONALS: To adopt new techniques for motivating and engaging young people to participate in community life.
Exchange practices, jointly develop tools to engage young people, and test them in partner areas. Connect elected officials and planning specialists, youth specialists, and young Europeans, and create recommendations for communities to facilitate youth involvement in public space development projects and strategies.
Funded by the European Union
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Indigise
The project is seeking new tools to reassure social business concept development and dissemination. Currently, the aid for social business is fragile, especially regarding using innovative informal learning methods. Students nowadays live in modern technology era when they are using computers, tablets, and mobiles for spending their free time and that ́s why we have decided to use advanced technology to bring the education to students by using the computers. DIGITAL TOOLS deliver one of the innovative methods - it is a well-known fact that all types of innovation - technological and societal, top-down and bottom-up (as in our project case) are using the ICT solutions such as the Internet, data gathering, social media. They all seems as crucial for catalysing the innovative process and spreading know-how across the borders
We foresee the project innovativeness due to several reasons:
it introduces the importance of the digital tools and gamification in educations - participants will learn how to solve the real problems by using eight innovative, youth-oriented ICT tools for social entrepreneurship education,
the continuation and development of the digital environment and tools for the special reason - to improve skills in social entrepreneurship and to support and promote social entrepreneurship in the youth sector within Baltic Sea region countries;
practical youth training concentrating, not on theory, but “practical business models for social entrepreneurship” and innovative gaming methods shared during the intensive five days’ InnoCamps in two countries;
dissemination with approach “train-the-trainers’ – concentrated on forums with youth participation, sharing practical examples and InnoCamp Methodology Handbook and networking.
This project can be seen as innovative also due to the following reasons:
Platform www.socialenterprisebsr.net that was created in the other project and will be used and further developed significantly by updating it and launching During this Erasmus+ project will serve as a self-study approach in local languages across the Baltic Sea region. There have been no such initiatives before - to our knowledge. Hence, the continuation of providing self-learning support for youth learners is a continuation of the innovation;
besides that platform contains a database of social enterprises in the BSR and events calendar, hence making it unique and outstanding networking and information sharing source in the BSR.
The project will have a set of key outputs:
Delivery of youth-oriented, innovative educational tools to develop the entrepreneurial competence in the field of social economy;
To spread the idea of social entrepreneurship in the Baltic Sea Region and broader - in Northern Europe (LV, PL, LT, NO) within the youth sector to enhance youth capacity for action and to develop new models of learning and doing business adjusted to young people’s needs in today's world aiming for collaborative economy;
Provide the necessary competencies, and support tools enable young people to develop social business ideas and entrepreneurial mindset at regional/national/ international level --> especially significant, as the 21st century skills at the core of the lifelong learning strategy of the EU will be critical to ensure a new generation of citizens equipped with competencies such as collaboration, creativity and problem-solving and personal skills such as initiative, curiosity and resilience;
2 InnoCamps in Norway and Lithuania designed to test the project outputs with final beneficiaries - youth. Junior Achievement experts and mentors will help to organise and conduct an InnoCamp experience for 25 young people (coming from 4 EU/non-EU) countries in each Camp. InnoCamps will also be an innovative approach and opportunity to test the project outputs with the target users and gather feedback to fine tune a final version of the products. Our aim is also to prepare InnoCamp Methodology Handbook to share our experience and replicate the InnoCamps in other EU and non-EU countries for more youth to acquire entrepreneurial skills and competencies and to engage them in social entrepreneurship activities;
introduce coding and gamification methods to engage youth within social entrepreneurship --> our answer to the fact, that new ways of thinking are needed for tackling societal challenges, as we discover that traditional problem-solving methods are no longer sufficient.
promoting the concept of SE and supporting social enterprise start-ups by maintaining an Open Education Resource platform - www.socialenterprisebsr.net with newly created "YOUTH" section.
The InnoCamps we foresee as a crucial part of our project and key-deliverable, as we've noticed that there are many compelling ideas about ‘what’ needs to be done in the field of social entrepreneurship in general. Our InnoCamps are meant to be pilot initiatives both for Lithuania and Norway, that once tested - will be described in details and available to other stakeholders (teachers, experts, youth workers, NGOs etc.) in whole Europe - they will receive complete Handbook with step-by-step guide what to do to prepare similar InnoCamp in their country/organization.
Baltic Sea Youth Platform
The BSYP will enable youth organisations to reach their fullest potential by empowering them to develop new ideas and pursue them jointly, under the guidance of the 2030 Agenda framework. The platform will engage youth at different levels, in the design of a common framework for action and a shared Baltic Sea Region (BSR) identity.
The aim of the partnership is, to…
Improve the political impact of youth on Baltic Sea policy-making.
Develop tools for better knowledge transfer.
Facilitate various innovative projects relying on the interests and capacities of youth in a broad range of policy areas.
What will be done?
The BSYP will produce several Intellectual Outputs usable for youth organisations and policy-makers in the BSR and other macroregions to promote the region and its identity. The main output will be a virtual platform for youth, organisations and decision-makers for projects and to interact with each other. The platform will be built according to the needs of the young people in the region and the demands of policy-makers. The platform enables youth to interact, cooperate and communicate across borders and to virtually meet peers and decision-makers in a safe and productive environment. The BSYD will also produce a Baltic Sea Youth Power Box, with toolkits and guidelines for intergenerational dialogue, policymaking, youth engagement and advocacy especially tailored for youth in the region, but with possible transferability to other regions. Furthermore, the youth platform participants will be able to engage in the production of youth inputs for the Baltic Sea Cultural Cities (BSCC) - a flagship project of the Policy Area Culture of the EU Strategy of the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR). The platform will collectively produce External Reports to show what projects have been done and how the platform was established. Furthermore, Policy Recommendations for decision-makers in the region to emphasise the political perspective of young people and ensure their positions and rationales are delivered to those who make decisions about our future will be produced.
How will it be done?
The Youth Platform will work as an umbrella coordination mechanism for several youth organisations horizontally across sectors in connection to the different policy areas and horizontal actions of the EUSBSR. The Strategic Partners of the Erasmus+ project (KA 205) and other associated partners will meet physically and virtually several times per year to discuss the progress and further steps of the project. There will be at least one Multiplier Event per year to inform external stakeholders about the progress of the project and showcase the Intellectual Outputs. In addition, young people will have a safe space to come up with concrete actions and project ideas to allow for increased participation of youth in society. This will contribute to the development of sustainable policies for future generations and the creation of future experts with the cohesion and stability of our Baltic Sea Region at heart!
