Youth Advocacy and Leadership programme 2023
The main proposed Youth Empowerment Advocacy and Leadership Development Programme is to enable young people to gain the necessary knowledge, skills and practical experience to better deal with young people's concerns and to become a real strong core of young people capable of actively contributing to the process of evaluating and, where necessary, implementing existing legislation and policies. As young people need support and assistance in developing their own skills and knowledge, the Youth Empowerment and Leadership Programme provides young people with the capacity (to be empowered, to provide young people with the knowledge and skills they lack in advocacy, to cope with challenges (to generate interest in young people, to meet their needs for fulfilment and achievement) and to communicate (to feel connected to people, the community, common ideas and actions in the interest of young people by ensuring that young people have a voice (in local and national elections) and that others' voices are heard).
The target group/audience of the project is Ida-Virumaa and Harjumaa county active young people, local communities from Tallinn (all districts of Tallinn, but mainly from Centre, Mustamäe, North-Tallinn, Õismäe, Lasnamäe), Maardu, Kohtla-Järve, Jõhvi, Sillamäe and Narva community leaders/representatives (age 18 - 35) and young people (age 14-26) with different ethnicities and economic backgrounds (including young people with special needs and mostly Russian speaking audience), also encourage participation of youth NGOs. Project mainly involves at least 80-90% of Russian speaking audiences. Project target groups representing also groups with risk of exclusion (people with special needs and young people who are facing structural, cultural and social barriers) we expect about 15% of these group representatives from the total number of participants. (We hope to reach about 10% are participants with war refugees background from Ukraine). Up to 385 people will be directly involved in the project, with an even larger number of indirect participants more than 1000 people (through research, social media coverage, questionnaire repliers, side events, programme followers).
Main stakeholders of this project are local/state educational and cultural institutions, youth centres, youth groups of political parties, decision makers, local governments and community organisations, youth and civil society organisations, cooperation networks & social networks acting within field of youth work on local level. The beneficiaries are community members, young people (and they parents), educational/cultural/youth/sports dealing organisations, local community leaders, and the whole of society itself, local and regional media organisations, also local government /interested bodies. When involving the target group, we take into account gender equality, geographical representativeness and motivation of participants.
Activities:
2-5.02.2023 in Narva - Pre-event and Youth Advocacy and Leadership meeting.
The pre-event has been organised as preparation activity for this project and in frame of strategic cooperation with British Council and implementation of long term programme for CSOs.The main goal of prevent and youth advocacy meeting is provide a necessary information and data for target group about the programme, connect young people and stakeholders to get practical experience though participation in the International security and civil society conference, where young people and invited experts could get important knowledge on security, sustainability, critical thinking and media warfare, resilient society, security. Meeting with politicians, ministries, foundation, academics, NGO leaders and stakeholders of various sectors. Additionally to that to train target group representatives on key themes Programme of the event consists of capacity building introduction training. Key theme: Sustainability, youth Advocacy, Leadership and active citizenship, XXI century skills and project management. Provide an overview on youth advocacy in the country and their engagement and active citizenship.
Feb.- Apr 2023 in Tallinn & Narva - Three trainings of Youth Advocacy and Leadership capacity building programm for youth leaders and CSOs of Youth NGOs.
To train target group representatives on key themes (The training consists of 3 on-site trainings (training includes a full training day, the training plan and the way it is organized are coordinated with involved partners, expert institutions and cooperation partner. Key theme: Sustainability, Media warfare, resilient society, security, youth Advocacy, Leadership and active citizenship, XXI century skills and project management.
23.02.2023 in Narva - Election debate in Narva.
The main goal is to stimulate Youth Debates with Parliament election candidates (politicians) on key topics what are related with future of young people in terms of political agenda of political parties, and to look at work of governmental bodies, local governments and communities.
Aprill 2023 in Tallinn - Youth Opinion festival “Young people yesterday, today and tomorrow: See if you were lucky”.
Youth opinion festival will be an open youth event for students and young people who are willing to share own opinion on key themes what youth are daily thinking and how knowledge and knowhow could help young people become more competitive at the labour market and also in local community life. In frame of the roundtable and World cafe we will summarize all discussed and shared opinion and present results of all Youth Opinion Festival memo and share it with decision makers and opinion leaders, media and funders.
In frame of the option festival we will also:
- Develop youth project initiatives of follow up projects/activities.
- Conduct an open discussion platform where each person could share own opinion on question what is worried by young people and community with representatives of state, civil society and business sectors.
The main goal of two day conference is to summarize project results and present achievements and practical outcomes (network of youth leaders), political declaration created by youth, summaries of youth opinion and developed follow up projects and of training programme stimulates Youth people to multiply the results and keep working on creation of own future and legislation of youth work and acceptance of own interests at the all levels. The results them with decision makers and opinion leaders, media and funders. Also will discuss a follow up by updating the format of youth network and digital platform where each person could have an opportunity to present their worries, challenges and solutions in terms of development, participation, engagement and democracy.
At the conference a new collaboration initiatives will be announced and developed for funding from EU and Estonian government. Programme of the conference includes: keynote speeches, presentations of project results, discussions of various experts, working groups and networking.
Conducting a short research on the concerns about the integration of Russian-speaking youth and national identity, taking into account current challenges (Media warfare, society resilience, gender equality and LGBT community related questions, active participation in the community life, free time, education reform and many others). Research will be done mostly though online questionnaire and in frame of the events and though partners contributions.
