COOPERATION YOUTH VOTE (COYV) FIRST TRANSNATIONAL PARTNER MEETING, Brussels, Belgium

The Cooperation Youth Vote (COYV) project: “Enabling future active European citizens” seeks to encourage and strengthen youth participation in elections through education and communication. The project aims to offer a space for training in preparation for the 2024 European Parliament election campaigns. 

The project seeks to build on a strong coalition of youth-led civil society organisations. It will in addition focus on the following target group: first-time voters and young abstainers.

Through developing  a robust set of outputs, partner organisations and the wider network can use the guidance to encourage and facilitate youth voting.  Particularly with regards to the upcoming European Parliament elections in 2024. Additionally, COYV seeks to hold politicians accountable for their promises and actions.

The initiative, supported by an Erasmus+ grant, will be implemented between March 2022 and February 2024.

Young people, young activists and youth workers from a diversity of youth networks will be included in this project. This will help to provide a basis for stronger cooperation and further projects. Over and above, the Project aspires to create a Voting Toolbox through a series of training sessions for multipliers and social media campaigns. This is to encourage young people’s participation in European elections in 2024.

The first transnational partners meeting of the 4 planned, was held in Brussels, Belgium for a period of 2 days from April 28-29. The project as well as the TPM1 was coordinated by JEF Europe, who are responsible for the overall coordination and communication with the partners at every step. The other core partners of the project are OBESSU (Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions) and the Young Educators – European Association, who will work in partnership with JEF Europe and the national partners to organise the educational/capacity building side of the project. They will on top conduct desk research, try out the developed actions, and will organise educational seminars and training sessions for multipliers. LLLP will support the development of the informal alliance Co-operation Youth- Alliance of Young Voters for the EP Elections 2024. 

COYV as well involves national partners at every step by bringing in the perspective from young people active on national and local level. JEF Belgium (Young European Federalists Belgium), JEF Bulgaria (European Youth Movement Bulgaria), JEF  Italy (Young European Federalists Italy), JEF Latvia (Klubs Māja – Club “The House” – youth for a united Europe, Latvia) will implement the pilot actions, multiplier events and participate in the expert groups to develop the tools. 

During the meeting, partners  set up the bases and the evaluation for the whole implementation of the project. Moreover, they establish links between the partner organisations and their roles.

Partner Organisations

JEUNES EUROPEENS FEDERALISTES AISBL Belgium

JEUNES EUROPEENS FEDERALISTES DE BELGIQUE (JEF Belgium)

EVROPEISKO MLADEZHKO DVIZHENIE (EYM Bulgaria)

GIOVENTU FEDERALISTA EUROPEA (GFE)

KLUBS “MĀJA” – JAUNATNE VIENOTAI EIROPAI BIEDRIBA (KLUBS MAJA)

ORGANISING BUREAU OF EUROPEAN SCHOOL STUDENT UNIONS (OBESSU)

YOUNG EDUCATORS – EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION (YEP)

LIFELONG LEARNING PLATFORM (LLLP)

The final event of the Keep in Pact project took place on the 28th March 2022 afternoon. The conference was organised as a fully online session with stakeholders and partner organisations. The Keep in pact project lasted between September 2019 to March 2022. The project’s objective was to develop the competences of multi-stakeholder partnership managers working in lifelong career guidance services.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has had an impact on the labour market, as a result people have lost their jobs while others have been displaced. The digital transformation on the other hand is rapidly changing the labour market ecosystem and individuals’ needs. It is therefore necessary that European professionals and citizens upskill and reskill to adapt to these developments. People need to find their path through different training, jobs, guidance, and employment opportunities. This will eventually help them to meet the new work standards. This project consequently sought to address these needs and more.

SEE THE EVENT AGENDA HERE

Marion Seidenbinder from Cité des métiers International network (Keep in pact lead coordinator and LLLP member) and Pauline Boivin, project and policy coordinator at the Lifelong Learning Platform moderated the event. Various PowerPoint presentations from the 6 partner organisations were projected. The project partners are the Lifelong Learning Platform, Brussels Belgium, Universcience/Cité des métiers de Paris, France, Cité des métiers of Porto, Portugal, Learning Digital, Italy, the Agency for Science and Higher Education, Croatia and Cité des métiers International Network – the coordinating organisation of the project.

DOWNLOAD THE PPT PRESENTATIONS HERE

To start with, an introduction to the concept of Cité des métiers was given by Catherine Kinet, Director of Cité des métiers Brussels. She presented how the guidance centre welcomes the public without appointment. Cité des métiers Brussels is a modern and attractive space that receives all individuals looking for career and education advice or counselling, especially the youth. In addition, people in need of jobs, entrepreneurs, workers among others will be received at the centre. The facility has digital equipment and the general public can consequently use computers for online interviews, search jobs, take part in workshops among others. This place is a mobilisation of advisers, stewards and experts from different institutions who together can answer all questions from the public. The facility is user-friendly for people with disabilities. Rooms are available as well for formal and non-formal training.

WATCH THE CONFERENCE HERE

Following the introduction, different staff from partners took the floor to present the different aspects, activities and outcomes of the project.

Below is the competence framework for multi-partnership cooperation management in lifelong career guidance and counselling:

The project has produced 7 case studies, which are also presented in a Summary report. There is a training program that includes 7 modules hosted on an e-learning platform. The training and learning activities are built on the 7 competences from the project’s framework. Learning materials are available in each module such as books, lectures, exercises, animated slides with voice-overs, interactive tutorials for specific skill development, assessment, and self-evaluation techniques suitable for self-directed learning and training. There are job-based activities for each module that provide a practical learning experience to the learners. Anyone can create an account to access the training platform to enter the course and explore the content.

On the Keep in pact project website, there are 5 Virtual tours of lifelong career guidance centres which gives a 360 degree view. There are arrows that enable you to navigate and move to various areas and locations of the building. Furthermore, there are access to videos and audios in various languages.

For partnership officers and managers, the Guide for cooperation aims to serve as a support in their daily life and to accompany newcomers in the field as they take up their duties.

It has been divided in 4 major topics:

1. Context of multi-stakeholder partnership in lifelong career guidance
2. What multi-partner cooperation can bring to the European challenges in terms of lifelong guidance
3. A practical case of one-stop-shop center: the Cité des métiers model
4. The major skills and actions for driving a multi-stakeholder partnership