Youth for youth
Start date: Jan 1, 2015,
End date: Mar 31, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
The “Youth to Youth" project took place in Covilhã (Portugal) and the main topic addressed was Human Rights and Citizenship. The project aimed to provide an intercultural experience to the young people involved; to promote the informal learning of the participant volunteers on intervention with children and young people from disadvantage contexts; to encourage the participation of the young volunteers in the promotion of social inclusion of people in social vulnerability; and to promote the development of citizenship competencies of the young volunteers and also of the children and young people addressed by the activities that were developed by the volunteers.
The project hosted in Covilhã 2 volunteers from Spain – one for 5 months and other for 12 months - who developed a voluntary service in which they designed and implemented a set of activities addressed to children and young people in social vulnerability from Tortosendo, a parish in the municipality of Covilhã, aiming to contribute to their social inclusion and the development of their citizenship competencies. Those activities were, for example:
- Recreational and educational activities (educational games, activities using ICT, etc.);
- Activities about cultural diversity (raising awareness activities to fight discrimination against Roma people, games to approach intercultural dialogue, etc.);
- Outdoor activities as sports, walks, study visits, etc...
- Campaigns to raise awareness about themes related with citizenship (namely gender equality, gender violence, bullying, etc.) and healthy lifestyles;
The volunteers had the opportunity to participate in activities already developed by CooLabora in this field and had also the opportunity to propose their own ideas for new activities. All activities were implemented with the support of the team of CooLabora.
It were used methodologies to promote the empowerment of children and adolescents for citizenship so they were involved actively in the planning, implementation and evaluation of activities. Volunteers were also responsible for all phases of the activities implementation process.
CooLabora provided all needed support for volunteers during the voluntary service and facilitated their participation in social and cultural activities to allow them to know better the local culture.
The expected impact and benefits on the volunteers in terms of learning and cultural experience was achieved, since they had experienced and implemented different kind of activities and intervention methodologies and have interact with the local community, namely in cultural events. The development of pedagogical activities for and with the local community, mainly with local children and young people, contributed to make the volunteers more active citizens and more aware of the social problems and cultural diversity. For the local community, this project was an opportunity to open horizons and, given that they are mostly young people, contributed also to a paradigm shift on their growth as citizens.