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Description
The objective of the project is to increase civic participation among ‘emerging adults’ (aged 18-30), addressing the programme area specific on youth inclusion.
The project shall be implemented by way of the following main activities:
- The establishment a minimum of 20 youth forums, in which participants will be guided and supported in organizing public and cultural activities, including debates, workshops, lectures and performances in local communities. A minimum of 100 participants is foreseen.
- A youth project incubator process repeated four times during the planned duration of the project. Participants will be mentored and supported in developing and implementing ideas and initiatives for the improvement of their local communities or civil society at large. Approximately 40 participants are foreseen.
Project activities will be preceded by a PR campaigns and roadshows at summer festivals tailored to reach and attract potential participants.
Summary of project results
There are over 1,5 mils. people between the ages of 18 and 30 in the Czech Republic. These people represent high potential for the society in terms of their abilities, low burden of life commitments (such as family, full-time jobs or mortgages), amount of free time and the fact that they often seek a meaning of life (Arnett, 2004; Arnett, 2013). This group of people could participate in fundamental changes in our society if they are addressed and well-guided.
However, there is extremely low interest in public affairs and a lack of participation among young people in the Czech Republic. This is mostly connected to insufficient guidance to civic engagement within families caused by the historical development of the country and inadequate education focused on citizenship at schools. According to a recent OECD survey, 57 % of people in the age of 15-29 are not interested in public affairs, which is one of the highest numbers among OECD. The lack of interest among young people makes them also vulnerable to believing conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and disinformation campaigns that increases the risk of them tend toward extremism.
In addition, as a result of technological change, the process of globalization, and the rise of wealth and the standard of living, we have seen fundamental changes in people''s lifestyles followed by a shift in the perception of adulthood. What used to be perceived as key decisions related to adulthood, such as career development, the decision to live in a committed relationship with a partner, starting a family, and entering civic life, is now postponed. This new development period between adolescence and adulthood is called emerging adulthood. Today’s emerging adults spend more time alone, as they more often socialise on the internet as opposed to in person, are less active and more anxious than previous generations. Emerging adults do not feel competent, empowered, and prepared for adulthood and for the duties that it entails. In consequence, they have a diminished ability to take up responsibility for themselves and for public affairs in society at large.
This project aims to fill the existing gaps in civic education and support the engagement of youth in decision making and in social and democratic development.
We executed complex incubation programmes for young adults (18-30 y.o.) developing their civic-minded projects and at the same time their life skills and active citizenship competences. We realized 5 yearlong cycles of two programmes: first designed to develop “Youth Forums” focused of small groups of young people and their activities for local community (debates, workshop, presentations etc.), second serving as a “Youth Incubator” welcoming diverse range of youth socially conscious ideas and helping them with its transformation into civic projects. In this fashion we supported 62 projects during this 5 years, 21 from Youth Forums programmes and 41 belonging to the Youth Incubator.
Within all these projects we helped 40 informal groups with developing informal civic education and strengthening democratic values. The overall number of supported informal civic sector subjects was 43.
Because of our focus on community and event based youth projects, one of our goals was to help young people organize public events and to arrange some bigger events ourselves. This way we succeeded in supporting the formation of 225 unique events across the whole country and organizing 10 bigger events with our (partly volunteer based) project team. Every big festival-like event had its own dramaturgical plan reaching 109 programme events in total. The finite number of event participants was over 1000.
Throughout the project we monitored, evaluated and collected our good praxis. Thanks to that effort we managed to create two manuals, one focused at Youth Forums and second on Youth Incubator audiences. The second called “Wild Jungle” is more thorough and on 21 pages describes the meaning and practical steps of developing an idea into a functional project focusing on personal growth of the young adult person commencing the idea.
As a complementary activity we decided to carry out a small international project called Take a Dare: Borderless!, thanks to which we enhanced our young adult oriented work with praxis from abroad. We engaged 9 partners, attended 2 European conferences and hosted 1 international event at our headquarters.
On an individual qualitative level we approached almost 200 hundred applicants, from which 168 we actually supported and helped them develop their ideas as well as life skills. Every year we arranged a series of educational and networking activities for the participants, provided them with relevant mentors and supported them with coordinator consultation.
The main objective of the project was to increase the interest of teenage adults in public affairs and to actively involve them in it. The objective was based on the trend of low involvement in civic activities of the 18-30 age group. Change was to be brought about by enriching local communities with public activities and by empowering and civic engagement.
A total of 187 people expressed interest in our two key activities. Ultimately 160 of them were involved in the projects, with a further 8 young people being engaged as long-term volunteers. Through our own larger events and the activities of the projects involved, the final number of events reached 336 and the number of supported informal action groups 43.
One of the greatest achievements of the project is reaching milestone of 320 new actions. Despite the covid, the growing psychological anxieties of the young generation, the war in Ukraine and the overall shift of much of the public and educational action to the online space, we have managed to encourage and motivate young people to organise and participate in activities in the public space. Although the milestone was defined at a very different time, we have managed to maintain its significance and achieve a necessary and highly meaningful horizon. We are also very pleased with the idea that, even after the end of the project, the dozens of initiatives we have supported will continue to enliven the public sphere.
The final number of actions "stopped" at 336. We deliberately put the word "stopped" in quotation marks because many of the initiatives that we helped to bring to the light of an engaged world continue their activities after the end of the project (as do we!). Thus, the project not only helped to implement a specific number of events for the young public, but also started a somewhat cumulative process that will continue to strengthen the civic engagement of young people for years after its conclusion and is thus a long-term inspiration.