The first part of the kick-Off event served to discuss the organisational and financial aspects of the project. After the welcome and a short introduction by BGZ, the budget and financing were discussed. Afterwards, all partners introduced themselves and described their fields of activity. All partners presented their tandems on prepared posters. Afterwards, the topic of common understanding of terms and definitions was discussed. The partners wrote down the terms relevant to the project on an interactive concept board.

• What technical & technological and content (inclusion, sustainability, digital) knowledge
  must be build/offered for the educational staff? And what kind of support could be organized
  for them?
• How can language be easy understandable for youth about the contents/themes the project
  focusses on?
• How can transfer and translation – also in terms of language – between youth and policy
  makers be organized?
• How can we support individual desire of youth and also raising their voice/strengthen their
  political voice as a group with similar demands?

The meeting was held in Burjassot, Valencia, the municipality that hosted the case study.

The first day was dedicated to a workshop in the socio educational centre, here representatives of the direction, youth workers and educators presented the goals and missions of the center. A discussion on the organisation and framework of the work, the methodologies applied and activities currently developed offered the opportunity to the partners to gain an insight view on the local context, its current challenges and potential for further improvement.

During a second part of the TPM the partners worked on finetuning the planning to implement the agreed upon dissemination strategy, designed and discussed concrete activities to be undertaken, in the form of world café. The Lead organisation provided inputs on the strategy paper, requirements to gather information on local and regional frameworks, along with the provision of guidelines to gather information on the target groups, work on research and needs analysis, and illustrated possible methods for social space orientated work.

On 28 March, our project partners BIS & GDLB have invited to a multiplier event on the project Access in Berlin.

BIS e.V., in cooperation with the other Berlin partners and associates, organized the first multiplier event in Berlin. The aim was to present and disseminate the three developed Intervention models for working with disadvantaged young people in line with the three pillars set out in the EU Youth Strategy (Inclusion, Sustainability, Digitalization), defined as focal points «inclusion», «globalization» and the «digital world».

The main focus was on the presentation and discussion of the Berlin Model particularely tackling the area of inclusion. The models were made available for the actors in youth work invited, and final goal was to initiate a fruitful communication, to enable and motivate them to test and evaluate these models in their respective areas of work. In this context successful synergies between the different actors were developed through round tables formats and Q&A sessions and the adoption of the models was promoted.

• How can disadvantaged young people be empowered?
• What do young people understand by self-determination and how can it be learned?
• How can key qualifications be built up so that they can recognise their own rights and formulate their own wishes?

The programme for the event can be found here
See here the introduction presentation to the Multiplier event by the BGZ

Social space-oriented participation offers for young people with fewer opportunities: Participation, Inclusion and diversity in the youth work, digitalisation and youth work

See here the Summary as well as Background reading & references on the LTTA Berlin

After the first LTTA and ME in Berlin, a part of the Valencian tandem that attended (Gonzalo Albir, coordinator of European projects of the FVMP and Seila Abad, social worker of Fem Salut Mental) had the opportunity to narrate their experience and address some of the issues being worked on in the European project ACCESS (ERASMUS+) in the Valencia Plaza Radio station.

The interview was about how the Valencian administration carries out the work of labour inclusion and the awareness and social support that exists around people with functional diversity. In addition, it was emphasised that there is great concern in Spain about mental health and other issues such as bullying among young people who may show weaknesses.

A study carried out in 34 countries by the company Ipsos places Spain among the five countries in which citizens are most concerned about mental health, and considers it to be the main health problem, ahead of cancer.

The data are very worrying and the COVID highlighted the problem even more. Some call it the “silent pandemic” but, at the moment, there are many voices calling for solutions to stop a tragic reality: more and more people are committing suicide in Spain. The figures provided by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics show that in 2021, 4,003 people committed suicide. Eleven deaths per day. In the first half of 2022, 2,015 suicides were registered, 1.6% more than in the same period last year. However, people who take their own lives are just the tip of the iceberg of a problem that affects millions of people. Mental health education should start in schools.

Finally, the audience was told that the FVMP partner (Musol Foundation) has implemented a pilot project in the 613-houses neighbourhood of Burjassot with socially excluded youth, improving teaching tools and sensitising students through the acquisition of digital skills (creation of a video game).

You can listen to the Podcast here: Pont an Europa: Plaza Podcast (Spanish only)

• How can disadvantaged young people be empowered?
• What do young people understand by self-determination and how can it be learned?
• How can key qualifications be built up so that they can recognise their own rights and formulate their own wishes?

The programme for the event can be found here

Social space-oriented participation offers for young people with fewer opportunities: Use of the social space concept for Youth work, thematisation of sustainability and global contexts in youth work with disadvantaged people

The EU Youth Strategy is a framework for European cooperation in the youth field for the period of 2019-2027. Its goal is to improve the situation of young people in Europe by creating more and equal opportunities for them. Hereby it focuses on three core areas of action, around the three pillars: Engage, Connect, Empower, while working on joined-up implementation across sectors.

Access, on the other hand, aims to promote participation, encounter and empowerment along these three pillars, with a special focus on disadvantaged young people. Here you can find an overview of the core objectives of the EU Youth Strategy and the focus of the three case studies within the Access project respective to the three pillars of the EU Youth Strategy.

You can find current insights and new content on the project cases on our new Padlet website

Access is committed to empower disadvantaged young people in Berlin, Vienna and Valencia by fostering their digital skills, engaging them to make responsible choices in their lives and to become actively included in their communities, enhancing their sense of connectedness to the environment and to the world.
To celebrate youth in the international youth day we collected a few voices of our beneficiaries:

1) From MUSOL, Valencia: “I’m glad I came because I like video games and I could learn how to develop them.”

2) From BIS / GDLB, Berlin: “We need people who listen and see our strengths.”

3) From Südwind / VHS, Vienna: “I’ve never had a workshop or anything else about the environment, human rights and so on. I think it’s cool that we are doing this.”