Synergy of practices to counter civic apathy among young people in Central and Eastern Europe

ongoing

The SYNERGY project is international cooperation project based on multilateral partnership between civil society organisations working with young people from Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine. The project has as a general aim to enhance the capacity of youth organizations to effectively counter civic apathy and promote civic engagement on local level among young people in Central and Eastern Europe. It takes a collaborative approach, engaging the partners in capacity building through mapping, documenting and critical analysis of practices, visit-based partnership learning, testing and dissemination. Being focused on promoting civic engagement among young people, the project will specifically explore practices of non-formal education, youth empowerment and stakeholder cooperation, with the final goal to sustainably improve the well-being of young people and their local contexts. The key project intervention logically flows through two stages: 1) Mutual exchange, analysis and documentation of practices for countering civic apathy of young people, (WP2); 2) Testing of identified methods and practices in own communities, particularly in rural and remote areas, collecting and analysing data and consolidating learning (WP3); 3) Communication and dissemination of results (WP4) The project envisions nine international activities, which include 6 study visits – one hosted by each partner in which visitors will have to observe practices in their natural context, and experience some of them. After observing and analyzing practices for countering civic apathy among youth, at every partner will select at least 3 practices and test it in their own context. This testing phase is expected to directly engage and benefit for 1200 young people and 300 stakeholders (youth workers, teachers, local authorities, other professionals working with youth). Results will be widely disseminated through publication with the documented practices and 18 videos.