In September last year, we launched our second call for proposals under the Fund for Youth Employment. As a result, we received over 130 applications confirming once again how relevant the Fund is. The applications will now undergo an assessment before the best project ideas are selected for funding. This is a great achievement and shows just how important it is to keep empowering, supporting and investing in our youth.
The fund in a nutshell
The Fund for Youth Employment was established in 2017 to contribute to sustainable and quality youth employment in Europe. Unlike most programmes funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants, this Fund has a transnational focus – it helps organisations across many different countries in Europe find new ways of fighting and reducing youth unemployment.
“The 138 applications have a total request of funding of 195 million euro. This amount is 16 times higher than the funds available in the call for proposals and clearly indicates the continued need for funding youth employment initiatives”.
Grethe Haugøy – Senior Sector Officer, the EEA and Norway Grants
The Fund for Youth Employment offers grants to projects that promote sustainable and quality youth employment in the beneficiary countries. Funding is made available for initiatives supporting young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) who are between 25 and 29 years old, specifically those living in small towns, suburbs or in rural areas, or who are mothers, or long-term unemployed.
Attracting thousands of entities all over Europe
In 2018, 25 projects with participants from 25 European countries were selected under the first call. These projects had ambitious goals: enroll 15 000 young people in education or training, support 14 000 young people in active job search, create 3 000 jobs in NGOs, social enterprises and the ordinary labor market, and help 1 800 young people start up their own businesses – just to name a few.
With this second call, things only got better. 138 projects have now submitted their proposals representing almost 1 100 entities from all EU Member States as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Greek, Italian and Spanish entities are most active as applicants, but smaller countries are also well represented, with Slovenian entities involved in as many as 64 applications and Cypriot entities participating in 49. As Grethe puts it, “this second round demonstrates the continued interest in our Fund for Youth Employment and the need to collaborate across borders to support youth and their future – this is great”.
