Project Summary
The project ‘Co-operation Youth vote: Enabling future active European citizens’ aims to offer a space for training in the preparation of the 2024 European Parliament election campaigns.
The project will prepare a set of outputs that the partner organisations and a wider network can use for the coming European Parliament elections in 2024 ensuring young people will vote, but also to make politicians accountable for their promises and decisions.
The initiative, supported by an Erasmus+ grant, will be implemented between March 2022 and February 2024 through the creation and use of a toolkit, a series of training sessions for multipliers, and a social media campaign.
Aims and goals
The two aims of the project are to:
1 – Understand the challenges of youth engagement and participation (voting) following the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and develop tools to address it. The objectives related to the first aim are:
To examine the challenges and motivations of young people, especially first-time voters, to engage in European initiatives and their interest in voting in the 2024 European Parliament elections.
To develop and try out educational tools, a toolkit and communication actions to address the identified challenges.
2 – And to develop an informal alliance of youth organisations that will work together on encouraging youth participation in democratic elections – both from peers and policy makers. The objectives related to the second aim are:
To offer space for networking among youth organisations, and exchange good practices on educational and communication actions.
To prepare an action plan of how youth organisations in partnership can reach as many first time voters as possible for EP elections 2024.
Implementation and activities
A) Transnational Partner Meetings (March 2022- February 2024)
Four Transnational Project Meetings (TPMs) will be organised throughout the project. They will aim at setting up the bases and the evaluation for the whole implementation of the project. Moreover, they will establish the links between the partner organisations and their roles. The TMPs will be organised in Brussels (Belgium), Riga (Latvia), and Rome (Italy).
B) Survey and desk research (from March 2022 to August 2022)
During the first months of the project, desk research will be carried out in order to get a broader academic understanding of youth participation and thus establish a comprehensive mapping of the literature and different strands of thought, with a particular focus on first time voters in European elections.
This knowledge will be used to create the Education, Youth Citizenship and Democratic Participation survey. The aim of the survey is to explore the different aspects of youth participation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially how it could have affected the engagement and participation of young people in civil society activities and initiatives.
A final report "Why Vote? An investigation on the attitudes, challenges and views of youth on the vote for the EP 24 elections" was published. Find more here.
C) Blended training for multipliers (October 2022- April 2023)
The knowledge gained through the desk research and survey will be used to organise online crash courses, focus groups and 2 in- person Trainings for Multipliers.
Training for Multipliers in Lisbon: development of VOTING TOOLBOX
Training for Multipliers in Sofia: development of Action Plans
D) Europe@School activities and Social Media Campaign (March 2023- August 2023)
This part of the project will involve a Social Media Campaign which will include the dissemination of the Education, Youth Citizenship and Democratic Participation survey results. Secondly, training sessions will be organised for high school students on the topic of Youth Participation. Additionally, discussions will be organised with decision makers, as well as multiplier events in different European cities to present the voting toolbox.
Download the Voting Toolbox, by following this link.
E) Multiplier events & Follow- up (September 2023- February 2024)
The multiplier events will be organised in 5 European cities and aimed at:
• presenting of the toolbox and practice of some of the tools with youth organisations at local and national level,
• and create debates with young people that are involved in European politics.
During the final event in Brussels, a Policy Conference will be held, the Informal Alliance Co-operation Youth towards the EP Elections 2024 Action plan will be presented and the first meeting of the Alliance will take place.
Check more about the final event here.
Partners and roles
Core Partners
JEF Europe will be responsible for the overall coordination and communication with the partners in each of the steps.
OBESSU (Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions) and the Young Educators – European Association, will work in partnership with JEF Europe and the national partners to organise the educational/capacity building side of the project. They will conduct desk research, try out the developed actions, and will organise educational seminars and training sessions for multipliers.
LLLP (Lifelong Learning Platform) will be the partner to support the development of the informal alliance Co-operation Youth- Alliance of Young Voters for the EP Elections 2024.
National Partners
The national partners were involved in each of the steps by bringing in the perspective from young people active on national and local level. They implemented the pilot actions, multiplier events and participate in the expert groups to develop the key tools.
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)
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