Closer to Europe
Start date: Aug 1, 2016,
End date: Sep 30, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
Background to the project:Kooperativet Fjället is placed in an area where many of the residents feel excluded. This making it difficult, especially for young people, to feel like a part of society. Many young people end up often on the wrong path, dropping out of school and in some casesconnect to criminal circles. With this project we want to get rid of the attitude held by young people in the area, by encouraging them to active democratic participation both in our activities but also in society.Objective of the project:Our goal is to develop an interest among young people for active democratic participation in both our activities butalso at a local level. We want to increase young people's awareness that they are part of society, and to create an understanding that they're actually part of the European community. In this way we want to remove the experience of exclusion and increase involvement.Our goal is linked to the goal of democracy and participation in the Erasmus + program.Profile of participants:We want two volunteers to this project. They must be at least 18 years, but we prefer that they are over 20 years. No previous experience is necessary, but we want our volunteers have an interest in working with people, especially with young people.Description of activities:Kooperativet Fjället is a youth center thats creating activities for young people between 13-20 years. We are working to create a meaningful leisure time for young people. We strive to create a safe meeting place where our visitors participate in a democratic manner. Our activities are based on young people's own interests and needs.We have activities for young people at the youth center when its open. We are open Monday to Saturday 17:00-22:00. Sometimes, as when the youths are on holiday from school, we have activities during the daytime. It happens that we go away and do things together with the youths in other places in Gothenburg.In few occasions during the year we also arrange activities for all residents. We organize events as addressed to everyone, especially adults in the area. For example, we organize every year a Midsummer celebration, and around Christmas we organize special events every year.Volunteers will create activities for young people based on their own interests. They will also have to plan activities that they believe young people are interested in, and who they think can raise the question about democracy and participation.Methods to implement the project:We will use various methods to implement the project. Mainly we use different methods of enabling young people to express themselves through music, art, media, crafts and more. We believe that the best way to reach young people, is to capture their interest, then connect their interests with those issues we are dealing with, and create activities based on that. We also hope that our volunteers can come up with their own ideas about how we can work with our our questions.Results and impact envisaged:We believe that the outcome of this project is an increased interest among young people and other residents in the area, by being active participants in society. we also believe in a greater awareness of the power of influence. We believe that the project can create a desire among young people to be part of the community at local, national, and European level.Potential longer term benefits:During a project like this we know that we face both prosperity and adversity that we will learn from. After each projectwe can develop our activities for the better, because we learn from both our mistakes and our successes. Our project can also inspire other organizations to start similar projects, so that more young people have the opportunity to do volunteer service.