Have you got a Youth in Action story to tell? Show us how your involvement in Youth in Action has provided you with new opportunities or changed your perspective by entering the 2012 'Your Story' competition. Enter today and you will have the chance to win some great prizes.

The competition is open to anyone who has ever taken part in Youth in Action. You can enter as either a group or individual.

It is a chance for participants to share their experience of their Youth in Action project through the following:

• Writing
• Photography
• Film

Visit our competition website for full details.
The competition deadline is: Friday 28 September.
The competition is open to all Youth in Action and Lifelong Learning Programme - Comenius, Erasmus, eTwinning, Grundtvig, Leonardo and Transversal - participants.

Good luck!

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CHANGES TO THE 2012 YOUTH IN ACTION PROGRAMME GUIDE

The European Commission have released a new version of the 2012 Youth in Action Programme Guide. We have summarised the main changes for you in the document below.

Changes to 2012 Programme Guide

We have also summarised the main changes to the Youth in Action programme for 2012 in the document below. It contains information about:

• budget available
• new application deadlines
• annual priorities
• Eastern Partnership Youth Window
• TCP call for organisations to deliver training
• simplified funding rules
• new partnership agreements
• electronic application forms
• multimeasure applications
• European Voluntary Service: change to lower (minimum) age limits

Youth in Action programme all changes for 2012

Simplified Funding Rules 2012

Are you very experienced in Youth in Action? And/or do you have international facilitation/training competences? Do you want to join our Trainers Pool of experts, to help deliver international training events for the National Agency?

We are looking to recruit up to 30 trainers to join our expert pool, to help ensure the quality delivery of training from July 2012 - December 2013. The pool will run under a framework contract, with call-down contracts for each training opportunity. All the specific expectations and responsibilities will be clarified during the first mandatory Trainers Pool meeting (31 Aug/01 Sept 2012).

Interested? Read the Call for Trainers, have a look at the sample Framework Agreement and then complete all the yellow sections of the Excel Application Form below:

1) Call for Trainers - explaining what we want to do and why.

2) Framework Agreement - showing an example of what the recruited trainers will sign to join the pool (there will then be call-down contracts for individual jobs).

3) Application Form - including all legal requirements for calls for applications. There are two information pages, and then three pages with yellow boxes for you to put your answers.

Email your application to yiatraining@britishcouncil.org before 9am on Wednesday 6 June 2012.

Following the adoption of the European Commission's Joint Communication A New Response to a Changing Neighbourhood - A review of European Neighbourhood Policy in May 2011, additional funds will be available over the period 2012-2013 in order to increase the number of Youth in Action projects and participants from the six Neighbouring Partner Countries of the Eastern Partnership (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), under the mechanism of a new 'Eastern Partnership Youth Window'.

This means that there is significant additional funding of €743,000 to support projects in 2012 involving the UK and Eastern Partnership Countries for the following Actions:

• Action 2.1: European Voluntary Service
• Action 3.1: Co-operation with the Neighbouring Partner Countries of the EU

For more information please consult p56, p79 and p89 of the 2012 Programme Guide.