EmpowerYouth: Enabling Youth Organizations to Shape Decision-Making on Issues that Matter Most to Young People

ongoing

Youth disengagement is affecting both EU and non-EU countries. Only 6 in 10 EU youths are active in the societies they live in, with the figures even worse in the EU aspiring countries from the EaP. Youth vote is in general lower than the overall turnout, while the dialogue with decision-makers is very limited. This happens despite the readiness of youths to be engaged, especially on topics they care about most, such as climate and environment, which can act as catalysts for heightened youth participation. For this reason, we are addressing the objectives of increasing youth political participation, civic engagement and dialogue with decision-makers and climate and environment. Awareness and engagement are unevenly distributed (with major variations depending on location, education, socio-economics, age and gender) and there is a growing need to strengthen the “taking action” approach and improve youth capacity to act as influential actors. The project aims to improve the capacity of a minimum of 80 youth organizations from 1 EU MS (Romania) and 3 non-EU countries not part of the program (Moldova, Georgia, Armenia) through a consistent and long-lasting transfer of knowledge, skills, and good practices. By providing a sustainable non-formal learning program we aim to empower a large sample of youths and youth organizations to improve their engagement in public policies and decision-making. By fostering partnerships and working together with CSOs and public authorities, we aim to allow for new cross-border cooperation and avenues that would support initiatives targeting youth engagement in civic and political life, decision-making, and, in particular, in the climate and environmental policies. Therefore, our project is complementary to the efforts done at the EU level, building upon key takeaways of similar initiatives, while putting a high emphasis on innovative and transnational approaches aligned with the EU youth agenda and strategies in place.