Strasbourg, 6 October 2015                                                                                                    CDEJ(2015)4

EUROPEAN STEERING COMMITTEE FOR YOUTH

(CDEJ)

55^th meeting

Strasbourg, 12-14 October 2015

European Youth Centre

Progress report “Council of Europe Quality Label for Youth Centres”

Item 8 on the agenda

The project “Council of Europe Quality Label for Youth Centres” has three aspects:

-                   a label to be awarded to youth centres that meet the standards laid down in the document “The Council of Europe Quality Label for Youth Centres”;

-                   an annual meeting of people in charge of youth centres that meet the standards or strive to do so (“platform of youth centres”)

-                   an annual training course for staff for youth centres;

The 6th European Platform of Youth Centres took place in Ecocenter Radulovački, Sremski Karlovci, Serbia from 13 to 15 May 2015 and hosted 28 participants from 19 centres and 17 countries. These included youth centre representatives from Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine. There were also representatives from a number of ministries, as well as from the European Network of Youth Centres (ENYC), the Network Of European Youth Capitals (NEYC), the European Steering Committee on Youth (CDEJ), the Advisory Council on Youth (AC), and the Council of Europe’s Youth Department.

The overall evaluation of the Platform by participants was extremely positive (92%). Some useful proposals for the further development of the project were developed during the meeting. It was confirmed that the 7th European Platform of Youth Centres would be held in Lisbon, Portugal in spring 2016. 

A catalogue of youth centres interested in the labelling process or already labelled can be consulted at http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/eycb/Programme/QualityLabel_en.asp

The 1^st Training Course on non-formal learning and Human Rights education for Staff of Youth Centres was held from 29 September to 2 October in the European Youth Centre Budapest and hosted 19 participants from 14 youth centres and 14 countries. The overall evaluation of the participants was very positive.

In 2015 the expert team realizes two exploratory visits:

-                   11-12 November, FITT Youth Centre, Timisoara, Romania;

-                   9-10 December, Centro Eurolatinoamericano de la Juventud, Mollina, Spain

“Brežice Youth Centre” reaches in December 2015 the end of the 3-year period the Quality Label was awarded for. The expert team therefore proposes to renew the Quality Label to “Brežice Youth Centre” in Slovenia based on the achievements and  documents accompanying the centre’s reapplication.