A Youth Initiative is a project initiated, set-up and carried out by young people themselves. It gives them the chance to try out ideas through initiatives, which give them an opportunity to be directly and actively involved in planning and carrying out projects. Participation in a Youth Initiative is an important non-formal learning experience.

A Youth Initiative is a flexible type of project that provides a variety of young people with the opportunity to learn from the experience of handling responsibility for the delivery and budget of a project.

Four or more young people can come together as an informal group to discuss issues they feel are important in their life. They can then devise a project to investigate further with a view to the creation of a proposal that addresses or improves those issues, particularly for themselves and other young people in the local community. To achieve this they would organise their ideas into a set of achievable targets and assign roles and responsibilities amongst themselves. They can request funds for their activities such as a. meeting room hire, equipment hire and promotion, in order to implement their aims.

The key concept is that the young people have control over all aspects from beginning to end and that the project responds to the needs and interests of the local community. In this way, a Youth Initiative project can help young people gain skills and experience that are transferable to work or educational environment.

Participants: Young people between the ages of 18-30 who are legally resident in a Programme Country. Those aged 15-18 may be admitted, if accompanied by a youth worker or coach.

Duration: National and Trans-National Youth Initiatives must last between three and 18 months, including preparation, implementation, evaluation and follow-up.

A coach is someone who has youth work and/or Youth Initiatives experience to accompany groups of young people and support their participation. S/he plays different roles depending on the needs of a given group of young people. The coach remains outside the Youth Initiative but supports the group of young people in the implementation of their project. S/he works with the young people in performing specific tasks based on the needs of the group.

Coaches can be volunteers or professionals, youth leaders or leaders of youth organisations, workers of youth clubs or youth services, etc.

Young people who have already participated in a Youth Initiative project can be encouraged to use the competences gained during the process to support other groups of young people; they can therefore act as resource person by taking over a peer coaching role.

The chosen theme should be of interest and relevance to the group of young people and their local community. Some example of themes are film, media, local heritage, environment, art and culture, social exclusion, information technology, racism, xenophobia, drug abuse and unemployment.

These are primarily for groups who already have a partner group in another Programme country to help devise, manage and operate a long-term project (from three to 18 months) that will benefit both local communities.

Transnational Youth Initiatives are similar to national Youth Initiatives but also involve travel for groups to visit and work with each other. It is important that groups works collaboratively and equally when designing this type of project.

There is no maximum but each other group/promoter must have at least four participants aged 18-30 years. Group numbers should be generally balanced in terms of numbers and gender, although this is not absolutely necessary.

The group or promoter acting as co-ordinator makes the application to the National Agency of its country.

Applications for Youth Initiatives projects should clearly show:

			An idea or theme that has been created by young people
			How the young people will run it
			A European dimension, that is, issues of common value to young people of different countries
			Ideally, some potential for networking and establishing partnerships with like-minded groups throughout Europe
			Contact person in the group must be a young person participating in the project
			Legal representative may be a youth worker or coach

If applying for a Transnational Youth Initiative, the co-ordinating promoter applies to the National agency of its country. Note also that there is a minimum of 2 promoters for a Transnational project, i.e. 1 from the UK and 1 from another Programme country but no maximum.

Please make sure you read the information above regarding eligibility before applying to ensure your application is not rejected for technical reasons.

Application form and Guidance notes are available for download in the Apply section of the website. Please get in touch, if you need more help.