Contributes from Carolina Guerrero (AFAIJ)

- Clarify the number of local activities: 4 Portuguese local activities + 4 Spanish local activities in a total of 8 activities;

- Create or propose more concrete activities for the local meetings in order to involve also youngsters and not also youth workers;

- Include an Activities Schedule;

- Include some financial information.

Activa_T Project Presentation Document - Draft Version

It is now available in this blog the "Activa_T Project Presentation Document - Draft Version" so that all the project partners can give their opinion in order that, by the end of the month of July we have a final version of the Activa_T project so that we can present it in our association and to some other possible partners and interested participants.

Activa_T Project Presentation Document

Introduction:

This project is the result of a previous Youth in Action Programme project. On June, 2008, it was held in Sirolo (Italy) a “Reflection Seminar on Youth Participation” where most of the partners of Activa_T project met.
In this event it was created a group composed by Portuguese and Spanish youngsters who together thought about the conception and implementation of an Iberian youth project. After presenting one to each other and their associations, this group started a brainstorming in order to find out the best field to work together. There was a profitable exchange of ideas and sharing of concerns and problems. As result of this informal conversation, this group decided to focus their project on the youth participation field, more concretely in the way how to increase and improve youth participation on youth association activities, as this was mentioned to be a lack on their work.
“Have you ever prepared a youth activity, and the people attending it were less than you have expected? Have you ever thought how to change this?” This was the found purpose for this project.

Aim:

Activa_T project was thought to be a 1.3 Action project with wide participation, involving several different associations. In this project will collaborate Portuguese and Spanish associations (in the same number of four from each country) as members of this Iberian partnership. These associations will be responsible for promoting locally this project, involving and calling to participation other associations from their network/region in a first stage.
As this project goes on, the participants will increase as well as the project dimension and reach. So, after a local/regional work in several different places, all national partners will join at a national level to complete and compile their work.
The increasing maturation of the project may lead us to a final stage at Iberian level, where all people involved will objectively embody their strengths and work in a final document.

Objectives:

As objectives/goals of this project, we manly identify:
- The exchange of experiences among associations at local/regional/national and international levels;
- The debate/discussion on youth participation and a better hetero-knowledge of the involved associations;
- To increase and improve youth participation in their associations;
- To increase and improve youth initiatives success;
- The exchange of ideas:
- on how to motivate youngsters in their association work;
- on promoting association’s activities;
- on how to increase the activities’ public/audience;
- on how to increase the active participation of those not experienced or not so active;
- on how to increase the number of youth leaders;
- on how to improve teamwork.
All these objectives in order to improve the quality standards of youth association work.
- The creation of an Iberian informal network of youth organisations to exchange contacts, resources and best practices;
- The redaction and discussion/dissemination of an official document compiling and resuming all this project work.

Implementation:

Local/Regional activities:
Previous work: contacting/inviting network/local associations.
Activity: One-day meeting with the maximum number of local/regional associations in a brainstorming session that will result in an Idearium (list of ideas) redaction on how to achieve our main goals resumed in how to increase and improve youth participation on youth association activities.
Number of activities: 8 local activities in the 8 partner association cities.
Participants: as many as each partner is able to invite. The most important is representativity and quality of participations, so there are no restrictions at this level.
Note: each local/regional activity implementation may differ from city to city according to the partner perception on how it is the best way to carry on these activities. Each partner has some flexibility to organize their local/regional activities.

National activities:
Previous work: Idearium analysis.
Activity: Two-day national seminar with the participation of the most active and participative associations at the previous level, consisting on workshops, team-work, debates and conclusions redaction. The objective product of these seminars will be two National Guide Papers where the participants will organize and shape their previous list of ideas which will guide them to the last stage of this project.
Number of activities: 2 national activities in the 2 partner countries.
Participants: 2 members from each 4 national partner associations + 4 youngsters from each 4 local/regional activities + 2 youngsters from any city whether there had been a local/regional activity or not, in a total of 26 youngsters. The participants will be chosen by the project partner associations.

International activity:
Previous work: preparation meeting with all the partners involved in the project.
Activity: Four-day Iberian Plenary Session concluding all the work developed in the previous stages. The participants will present the National Guide Papers and then work in Iberian groups in order to develop the content of the final product of this project: the Iberian SED∩CTION MANUAL on Youth Participation. There will be elected a democratic representative group (“comité”) responsible for the redaction of this manual which may be concluded some time after the Iberian Plenary Session.
Number of activities: 1 Iberian activity, held in Spain.
Participants: 16 members from each partner country in a total of 32 participants.

Dissemination activity:
After the conclusion of the redaction of the Iberian SED∩CTION MANUAL this will be edited in both Portuguese and Spanish languages and distributed in local events in each participant city. These events are responsibility of each partner.

Follow-up activity:
As result of this project, there will also be created an Iberian association contact and resource exchange network, which may be used by all the participants of the Activa_T project.


Porto, July, 1st 2008
Activa_Team