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Description
Through our experience of working with young people in the last three years, in cooperation with educational institutions in the area of the City of Gospić and neighboring municipalities, we gained insight into the urgent needs of local youth. Due to long-term pandemic limitations, they have lost the continuity of active participation in the public life and valuable knowledge and experience for community building and engagement. Project will strengthen capacities of young people and increase their engagement in the community through educational activities and mentorship. They will increase knowledge and skills for communication with government officials; organizing volunteers; fundraising; implementation of socially useful campaigns; organization of socially useful events. In addition, they will gain practical experience by participation in the Festival of Sustainability (local public event). They will have an opportunity to apply the acquired knowledge and with support of Trećeprostor take a part in all steps of the festival planing and organization (promotion, program, cooperation with local government, etc.). Goal of festival is to provide opportunity to speak publicly about local challenges (corruption, depopulation, lack of social content) through multimedia tools (exhibitions, photography, theathre plays). They will take a responsible role in the community and increase citizens'' awareness of local challenges. In addition to young people (primary target group), adult users of POU Gospić will be involved in the organization of the festival for intergenerational cooperation and the transfer of knowledge. Added value is development and dissemanation of a digital guide for organizing socially useful public events with practical examples from the organization of the Sustainability Festivalwhich. It will be free for use and will serve young people as additional tool in their work. It will be sent to all youth associations and public open universities in Croatia.
Summary of project results
Through our experience of working with young people in the last three years, in cooperation with several educational institutions in communities in the area of the City of Gospić and neighboring municipalities, we gained insight into the urgent needs of local youth. Due to long-term pandemic limitations, they have lost the continuity of active participation in the public life of the community. Furthermore they have lost valuable knowledge and experience in the area of community building and engagement. Project will strengthen capacities of young people and increase their engagement in the local community through educational activities and mentoring support. Young people will increase their knowledge and skills in the areas of: communication with government officials; involving and organizing volunteers; fundraising activities; implementation of socially useful campaigns; organization of socially useful events. In addition to the education, young people will gain experience by participation in organization of one local public event, the Festival of Sustainability. The group of youth will have the opportunity to apply the acquired knowledge and with support of Trećeprostor they will participate in all steps of the festival planing and organization (promotion, program, cooperation with local government, etc.). Goal of festival is to provide to young people opportunity to speak publicly about local challenges (corruption, depopulation, lack of social content) through multimedia tools (exhibitions, photography, theathre plays). By doing this, they will take a responsible role in the community and increase citizens'' awareness of local challenges. In addition to young people as a primary target group, project activities will be also attended by adult users of POU Gospić who will be involved in the organization of the festival for the purpose of intergenerational cooperation and the transfer of knowledge. As an additional value of this project, a digital guide for organizing socially useful public events will be developed and disseminated. It will be consisted out of practical examples from the organization of the Sustainability Festival itself. It will be free for use and will serve young people as an additional tool in their work. It will be sent to all youth associations and public open universities in Croatia.
-A total of over 50 young people were empowered through education in 4 areas. With good cooperation with local educational institutions, we introduced young people to new knowledge in the field
advocacy, volunteering, implementation of campaigns, etc. Young people through open discussion and tasks learned how to assert themselves in given areas and why it is important for their personal and professional development. The success of the training is also evidenced by the fact that we are among the participants of those trainings without difficulties formed a volunteer group that worked continuously. - Through cooperation with local institutions and individuals (volunteers, artists) we are successful organized a two-day sustainability festival. One of the most important points was that the program designed and implemented by local forces. The goal of the festival was therefore local, local. Visitors to the festival program were mostly also young people - friends and acquaintances of our volunteers. As an important and valuable part of the festival was a round table attended by representatives of local organizations and institutions agreed to continue cooperation for the purpose of enriching the lives of young people in Gospić. Through the promotion of the festival, through advertising media, posters and guerilla interventions in the space, citizens'' awareness of specific issues was raised to the needs of young people (lack of space).
- An educational guide was created based on the direct process of working with young people in project and which is filled with examples of the work of our volunteer group. The guide was sent to a larger one number of addresses of associations in Croatia and Public Open Universities and is permanently available as a tool for organization of events that can help people/organizations who decide to do so undertaking.
- This group has become a kind of nucleus of content creation for young people in Gospić. Example: a young volunteer from our group connected with our partner organization (Association Lika) and designed and created a mural for her school on the topic of preventing peer violence.
With this project, we planned to achieve results in two important areas:
- Empowerment of local youth
- Solving a specific local challenge that young people themselves consider important.
Regarding the empowerment of young people, we believe that we have achieved everything that was planned. They are young strengthened theoretically through a set of educational workshops and a volunteer group was formed in which young people were continuously educated through practical tasks. They are the result of their work activities they designed and implemented as part of the sustainability festival. As for solving one specific challenge (the problem of lack of space for young people) we have made certain positive developments. We opened a community discussion about the need young people with an adequate space for socializing and learning (we gathered institutions and organizations in the purpose of finding a solution). Through the organization of the festival, we provided an example of repurposing one space (Kino Korzo) into a space that can serve young people as a meeting and learning place, However, our intention to include responsible people from the city in the discussion remained unfinished Gospić, who could potentially financially support our efforts in solving the challenges. Representatives of the city (head of social activities) on the day of the round table is after that she previously confirmed her arrival, eventually canceled it (due to illness) without sent an adequate replacement person. The Kina Korzo space, although it has potential, is still in its infancy phase of its full function since it is necessary to invest in the acquisition of additional equipment, solving heating system, have a person to manage it, etc. It is important to emphasize that as part of the new project FANZ''s part of the activities for young people will be held in the Kina Korzo area.