IN NEET < Άλιμος

Encouraging young people to build a better Europe – IN NEET

Description of the Project

The project will create a European network of 8 different organizations from Greece, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria, focused on NEET phenomenon. The project will tackle the phenomenon of the NEETs, proposing solutions in order to encourage them to participate fully in civic life as European citizens. According to Eurostat, in 2019 the rate of NEETs stood at 16.4 % in the EU.

The main aim of the project is to build channels and social spaces in order to reintegrate NEETs inside the society, especially those who are discouraged and long term unemployed. Most of the activities (creative labs, round tables, debates, job shadowings, human libraries etc.) aim at promoting active citizenship among youngsters/NEETs, enhancing civic and democratic competences. Those channels will take into account all the EU policies and opportunities defined to support youth social inclusion (Erasmus Plus program, Mobilities, EU Citizenship rights, etc.).

While NEETs will be the main beneficiaries of project, the key players will be the young citizens and workers in order for them to be encouraged to participate, to freely express their point of views and needs and to contribute to decision-making concerning matters affecting their social integration.

The project is structured in 8 international events where a group composed by young citizens will implement (in cooperation with other youngsters) several activities aimed to develop new outputs. These outputs will enable the European Youngsters to prevent and face this phenomenon and European citizens in general, to get a better understanding. Finally it will make EU capable of facing this situation and how citizens can grasp those opportunities.

Action Plan

During the conception phase of this proposal all the 8 partners involved in the project declared that a consistent number of youngsters ignore what the EU is doing for them. Even though the local administrations composing this partnership were trying to organize and support several activities aimed to foster youth engagement in the civic life of local communities, they did not receive enough support and interest by the local youngsters.

In order to face all of this, multicultural dialogues between 8 different European towns will be generated in order to analyze this European social situation and better understand the main causes, risks, consequences and potential solutions. This action will be implemented, involving all local stakeholders and activating them in an innovative participatory process. These participatory workshops will be held at local level in schools and public buildings, highlighting main concepts such as European citizenship, EU policies for social inclusion, civic participation and democracy.

Secondly, creative ideas and proposals to address the issue will be encouraged. In this case, all local stakeholders of the 8 different European territories will take part in these activities by a participatory and transversal approach and they will produce common project outputs as a Project video (short documentary) and Strategic Guidelines elaborated between all participants, in order to improve EU youth policies impact at local level. These will be the core products that will be disseminate by social networks and also through institutional meetings and activities, even after project deadline.

Finally, all these strategic actions will contribute to the understanding and dissemination of the phenomenon and potential solutions, and also improving the empowerment of NEETs.

Partners