iLead – The Creative Leadership Academy

Project facts

Project promoter:
Gozo Regional Youth Council
Project Number:
MT03-0006
Target groups
Young adults
Status:
Completed
Initial project cost:
€50,000
Final project cost:
€48,508
From EEA Grants:
€ 43,657
The project is carried out in:
Malta

Description

The problem identified for this project is the lack of job opportunities in Gozo. We want to give hope to the youths by training them to become leaders and active participants and thus develop their skills and create opportunities. Gozo is turning into an island with a diminishing presence of youth. This situation is leading to alienation, frustration and lack of opportunities to youths in Gozo which are resulting in less active participation or even desire to act and react to current trends. More projects concerning youths require partners. We want this project to open a number of opportunities to NGOs to establish contacts and participate in networking. The mission of the GRYC is to provide a national forum for youth organizations in Gozo to effectively develop, promote and advocate youth initiatives and policy making in the youth field. The project plans to include the delivery of a training course by a foreign expert on how to develop leadership, advocacy and negotiation skills. This will be followed by peer learning activities where those attending training will pass the information acquired to other members of the organization.

Summary of project results

The island of Gozo is losing talented youths and suffering a “brain drain” due to the lack of job opportunities on the island. This factor impacts negatively on the economic potential of the small economy, with a diminishing role in the overall national picture. The situation is leading to alienation, frustration and lack of opportunities to youths in Gozo which are resulting in less active participation or even desire to act and react to current trends. Also, problems are being encountered when youth organisations are approached to provide their feedback on certain policy proposals or documents, their lack of training on how to contribute towards discussions or how to provide coherent feedback is hindering the role of youth organisations in adopting an active role when setting policies on youth. The aim of this project is to strengthen the role of Gozo Regional Youth Council so that it acts as a national forum for youth organisations in Gozo to develop, promote and advocate youth initiatives and impact policy making in the youth field. To achieve this, the project has implemented a training course to improve advocacy and negotiation skills; initiated a peer to peer learning sessions to transfer the knowledge from one member to another; made a presentation of the set of policy recommendations; and created a website. At the end of the project 62 youths have been trained in advocacy, leadership and negotiation skills (target – 60). Because the European Youth Week was not held, instead an international guest was invited to do a workshop in Gozo, this modification ensured that all the participants gained from the experience of the International guest since the workshop was carried out for all the participants of this project. 10 workshops and 2 debates (targets – 3 and 1 respectively) were organised throughout this project, these exercises encouraged debates and ensured a learning by doing approach. A website to promote the project was created by the Gozo Regional Youth Council Forum and a set of policy recommendations in the youth field was presented to policy makers. This ensured that Gozitan youths were given the power and the skills to change their future from one of apathy to active participation developing their skills and create opportunities to avoid having Gozitan youths feeling alienated and not forming a part of the system.

Summary of bilateral results