“Climbing the Ladder: fostering a culture of Youth Engagement (CL-YE)” Strategic meeting for the Pool of Youth Facilitators for Democracy

Within the “Climbing the Ladder – Fostering a Culture of Youth Engagement (CL-YE)” project, Europiamo ETS and DYPALL Network co-hosted the strategic meeting for the Pool of Youth Facilitators for Democracy. The activity took place from 1st to 6th of September in Altamura, Italy, bringing together the same 16 young leaders from 11 different countries (already trained last April in Portugal), all of whom are actively engaged in the youth sector within their local communities.

The two key objectives of the strategic meeting were:

• to re-connect and explore recent project developments;
• to create a strategic plan with common objectives and possible (local) actions to generate an impact in their communities, thus contributing to high-quality youth engagement mechanisms.

Key sessions of the activity, supported by two experienced facilitators, included:
– creating a group manifesto to reflect on shared vision and group identity;
– parallel workshops on youth policy development and key steps to apply for EU funding opportunities;
– drafting a strategic plan for the pool of youth facilitators for democracy;
– preparing an inspirational letter for the stakeholders that will make use of the project’s digital platform;
– updating the structure and content of the individual “Toolbox for Youth Facilitators”.

This second in-person activity has been a crucial step in the project, allowing the pool of facilitators to continue investing in capacity building, further developing the project outcomes and designing follow-up actions.

The CL-YE project is coordinated by DYPALL Network in partnership with Europiamo ETS (Italy), YEPP EUROPE (Germany), Nordland fylkeskommune (Norway), EDYN (Slovakia), Assembly of European Regions – AER (France), and SQLearn (Greece), and is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme.