It is a regrettable fact that modern city dwellers and especially the young generations are so alienated from nature that they know little about the food they eat every day, where it comes from, how crops are grown etc. This is also true for students in Malta. Due to the industrialization and urbanization of the archipelago environment, Maltese students are in the dark about the nature of their daily food which leads to their low appreciation of Nature all around us. As they live in extensively urban areas, they lack the awareness, knowledge and skills on how to use the space around them to produce basic crops. Training young farmers in the cityCorrecting these deficiencies is what a new project, dubbed Farm the City and funded under the Erasmus+ programme, is attempting to do. Among the project partners are PRISMS MALTA, the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology, and two Romanian participants – “Dr. Alexandru Safran” Secondary School and the non- profit Association for Education and Training (ASEF), both based in the city of Bacau. The main aim of Farm the City project is to make the young people aware that they can make use of urban spaces to grow their own crops and to show them how to do this. The objectives of the projectTo achieve the main aim, the project partners have set the following objectives:
If you are interested to learn more on urban farming, visit the website of the project or download the farm the city app from IOS or Google Play. And do not miss the Recipes section – it shows what your painstaking efforts will lead to in the long run: preparing food that is healthy, mouth-watering and worthy of sharing with real and social media friends
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Public Space Prilep is a project initiated by Zvonko Dimoski in 2018, who is also the project manager, first in collaboration with youth association Info Front-Prilep, and the following year it became an independent civic association. This project was and still is, driven by the idea that the public space is mutual, and so the idea to revive the central city core through culture started. The implementation of this project was in public spaces, mostly in the area around the characteristic clock tower in the city of Prilep, from the beginning of June until mid of October. The type of events was different, but they were kept local. Few examples of the kind of events we had: Creative Bazaars, where local artists brought their handmade art and had the opportunity to present and sell it. We had natural cosmetics, jewelry, toys, clothes, etc. Themed parties such as 80's night, radio night, Latino, Macedonian evergreens, and all of them gathered people of all ages. Educational bike tours for the youngest and adults, where kids were thought on the basic rules about cycling, and then they practiced them on the polygon made temporarily for them. The adults had bike tours to the nearby museums, archeological sites, and cultural monuments in the city and outside of it. Postcards of the city made and sold by local artists. Besides its events, Public Space Prilep also supported other activities such as the music festival "With Marko on the street," poetry slam, and others. It collaborates with many city organizations and is often socially engaged. In the end, the result was encouraging and stimulating the city community's inclusiveness and creating a popular platform for exchanging ideas, experiences, products, raising awareness and stimulating volunteering and creativity. Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/javenprostorprilep/ Visual identification of this project made by the local artist Gjorgji Despodov: https://www.behance.net/gallery/95415509/Visual-Identity-Javen-Prostor-Prilep?fbclid=IwAR2viPF0ck_1A_MPBtdjlcc5VnrBPyGMo0iYgYUoj7Fh53RUiPcCAvPDGvM I CAN - Network of Active Citizenship was a 16 months volunteering project promoted by AMC. The project that started in November 2017 and finished in February 2020, organized 6 long-term mobilities, within 8 partners, from 7 different countries, 2 Portuguese youngsters went to Slovenia and Greece and 4 youngsters from Spain, Italy, Georgia and Armenia moved to Portugal, one for each country. The aim of this project was to work on the concepts of citizenship, we lead the volunteers through reflections on this concept, their role as citizens and how to become active members of a society. With this project, volunteers became more aware of their reality and problems and were able to take actions that promoted a positive change in attitudes and make them more active and participative citizens. The involvement of this participants in local community activities with local partners allowed us to diversify the environment of the volunteer work, their experiences and training possibilities and their tools of civic participation. With the support of all organizations involved and local partnerships this project was a successful experience. 🔹 Human Dignity 🔹 Freedom 🔹 Democracy 🔹 Equality 🔹 Rule of law 🔹 Human Rights 🔹
This are the values of European Union. The foundation of inclusive, tolerant, equitable, supportive and non-discriminatory societies 🤝 Today we celebrate the Europe Day! 70 years of lasting peace! Click the link to see the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EF3yHoJhFw Even though our focus is youth, the associations that compose MCN Network have several different paths to reach the goals envisioned regarding that field. Different origins, different countries, different realities, all of that contributes to a rich variety of perspectives, skill sets, and expertise.
In order to better know our strengths and needs, MCN went out to find out the real people that contribute to this project. We shared a form with every partner with questions regarding their collaborators that shed an interesting light into the composition of the MCN group. The result is a diverse and complete team, composed of people of different ages, from different countries, with different educational background. The way we work with youth is very wide and is put into practice with diverse emphasis. Lastly, we shared our interest in improving our knowledge and skillset and gave some hints on the way we prefer to do it. Planning the future of society can sometimes feel overwhelming: how do we even know which will be the challenges of tomorrow to prepare and tackle them today? This is even more magnified when we talk about youth, as this shifting group has an ever-evolving set of values and interests. How to plan long-term policies with such fickle target audience to apply them to? The thing is, youth has a specific set of needs inherent to their characteristics that should always be addressed – education, access to competitive job markets and children right’s, for example, should all the time be concerns of public legislation. Besides, an increasingly crystallized set of values is being shared internationally by young people. Topics like the protection of the environment, LGBTQ issues or digital rights have united young people across different countries and through different age groups. It is with this framing in mind that the Youth Goals were planned. The EU Youth Dialogue that took place in the years of 2017 and 2018 identified those needs and interests and started creating the necessary framework for them to be addressed by the EU Youth Strategy for 2019 – 2027. The result is the Youth Goals, a set of 11 points that describe what the EU Youth envisions and strives for its future. They are as follow:
The Youth Goals are created by, with and for Youth. They were written with the hearing of thousands of young people spread around Europe via meetings, surveys, think-groups, etc. The young people voiced their concerns, as well as their suggestions for improvements. Experts were also consulted and able to give suggestions and comments.
To better prepare ourselves for this new reality, Associação Mais Cidadania took part in a Training Course in Mollina, Spain, organized by the Consejo de la Juventud de España - The Spanish Youth Council. During one week, we shared with other associations how can we use the Youth Goals, help implement them and improve them even further in the future. For Youth Workers, the Youth Goals must be one of the main focus of our activity, for they represent a guide to the issues that should steer and potentiate our intervention. Following the topics addressed in the Youth Goals, and even the solutions suggested in each of them, is the simplest and most direct way to undoubtfully work towards the needs of European young people. With this rich tool at our disposal, we can further legitimize our initiatives and pair them with official EU strategy. Katzen Kabaret addresses young creators and educates audiences. The target audience of young people faces unrecognizability, media manipulation, commercialization and lack of a platform for expressing their own ideas. The project provides them with a platform where, through creativity, they can present their worldview, and with a multidisciplinary approach to current events in society. Cabaret is the performing genre that most effectively combines current issues (attitudes towards refugees, homosexuality, war …) and relaxed entertainment. Cabaret is made up of individual performances that are related to a common theme that gives the opportunity to different young creators to identify themselves in individual situations and use their talent. In times when silent censorship is reestablished, and especially self-censorship, cabaret is a popular channel of communication for critical creators and audiences. Such events are well attended, and the audience is returning. Participants, through professional mentoring, learned about the possibilities of using their skills as well as those of other participants in new areas of application that they had not previously had access to. Each participant came to the meetings with certain previously acquired competences, which he/she shared with others, while adapting them in order to integrate his/her knowledge in a joint project. The skills that the participants already possessed varied from dance, interpretation, poetry, drama, playing instruments and storytelling to scenography, makeup ... In addition to transferring artistic knowledge through the process of non-formal education, the effect of socializing and mixing different "subcultures" that have previously worked in their own circles, and by working on a collaborative project beyond their own frameworks, may be equally important. Zavod Mladinski center Kotlovnica Kamnik
The story of the bottles2boats project has started with the common grounds of two organisastions: K.A.NE. and R.A.D.I.Kal.A. K.A.NE., Social Youth Development, is a non-profit organization founded with the aim to develop both locally and internationally. K.A.NE.’s target group are the young people aged 18-35 and people involved in the youth field. The vision is to foster youth motivation in order to take initiatives and become more active citizens. K.A.NE.’s mission is to create structures for the youth and to provide educational and training opportunities for the target group.
R.A.D.I.Kal.A’s (Recycling Awareness Design Innovation Kalamata Association) core idea is to raise awareness about environment and health through involving citizens in waste recycling combined with physical activity. The members of R.A.D.I.Kal.A believe that raising awareness about health and environment among school children is the most efficient on the long-term. Following the common grounds of both organisations, the D.R.E.A.M. project was born as an Erasmus + short term group EVS project That aims to involve European youth and the participating organisations in order to act as multipliers in local societies but also in their wider pan-European or international network of the importance and impact that mobility programs and participation in nonformal learning processes can have as well as the need for protection and respect for our natural environment, the search for creative and innovative ways to protect it, and the need for a more active and healthy lifestyle. MCN annual meeting took place between 23-25 October, in Lisbon, Portugal.
With our partners from different organizations, we shared our opinion about different topics, reflected on youth goals and discussed upcoming projects together. In addition, we started to work on MCN booklet to share the best practice of our network, which will be launched next year. Last month, Compagnons Bâtisseurs France organized its annual meeting called “social workcamp” in Lille, during 1 week. Within this action, we helped different associations specialized in several projects to build materials that they needed.
This meeting gathered more than 90 people from Compagnons Bâtisseurs, volunteers, staff members, board, etc. This was a good opportunity to help associations and to create a close link with the members of our association. This year, we realized four big projects in a week. A record time!!! We helped to renovate a teenager center in Roubaix (close to Lille, in a poor neighborhood), we created some urban furniture with Roubaix inhabitants, we built some cabins for children's playtime and finally we finished by helping a local association to optimize the use of there space. Everybody worked a lot! We were proud of the participants because they gave their best and created a good environment in this meeting. Compagnons Bâtisseurs counts on people from different countries who speak different languages and that wasn’t an impediment for them to work together and to understand our mission. We help people to build a better world. In conclusion, we love to work with volunteers and we want more volunteers to participate in our projects, they will be very welcomed and we will love to teach them French. Below there are some pictures that illustrate this action. Merci beaucoup. |
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