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Description
The Association of Friends of Youth for Goriška Region raises the quality of life of children, adolescents and their families through socially responsible programs, advocacy, awareness-raising, education, and the implementation of leisure activities. They provide children and adolescents with equal opportunities and a safe, quality upbringing into mentally stable, empathetic, responsible, creative, and critically thinking individuals. They help families to become capable of making responsible decisions for the common good and the quality of life of present and future generations. They organize camps and events for children to promote social inclusion of children of all social backgrounds on equal terms and make their voices heard, such as the Children’s Parliament with a 30-year tradition. They also organize experiential workshops for the development of cultural and social values, workshops and weekly workshops for children and parents, summer and education camps. They raise awarness on families and gender equality as well as stigmatization of powerty.
In the next three years the organization will further develop their programs by strengthening advocacy in the field of children''s rights and educational programs for active citizenship. They will work towards changing the concept and the content of the school for parents. They will pay special attention to humanitarian programs to make them even more effective with focus on gendar equality (promoting equal pay, work-life balance, awarness raising on women powerty and non-paid domestic work etc.) and non-discrimination (inclusion of children and youth with different backgrounds in their activities - including migrants, addressing social inclusion, disability and LGBTQI). By further developing the programs and the functioning of the association, they will strive to increase the visibility of the organization and become a strategic partner to local, national, and international organizations.
Summary of project results
With organizational support, we have addressed the challenges related to adolescents, high school students, university students, and their parents through the implementation of the organizational strategy. These challenges are primarily evident in the lack of support for young people amidst the growing flood of influences from the digital lifestyle, providing support for young people in distress and offering psychosocial assistance, the lack of programs for empowering young people in terms of civic education, the lack of programs for providing quality leisure time activities, and the lack of support for parents of adolescents in distress.
As part of the activities for implementing the strategy, we have redesigned and developed programs for empowering young people in the field of civic education, strengthened cooperation with NGOs and intersectoral collaboration, conducted training and workshops for young people and parents, carried out training for our employees and volunteers, and revamped the website.
Through media presence in the public (more than 12 public announcements), we have increased the responsiveness of the organization to current topics. We have redesigned at least 3 programs for active citizenship. We strengthened cooperation with 17 educational institutions and public-private institutions (secondary and primary schools, universities, public institutions). Through applications for calls (11) and the donation of 1% of income tax, we have financially strengthened the organization.