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DG Democracy
Directorate of Democratic Participation
Youth Department
THINK YOUTH | No:68 November-December 2018
Voluntary contribution of the Government of Flanders
The Government of Flanders, Belgium has made a voluntary contribution of €80,000 to support the project “Social Inclusion of Young Refugees” implemented by the Youth Department within the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan on Protecting Refugee and Migrant children in Europe.
The project seeks to reduce the risks of social exclusion and violence that young refugees, especially minors in transition to adulthood, are exposed to. Built on Council of Europe youth policy standards, it supports the social inclusion of young refugees and their access to education, self‐development and autonomy through youth work and non‐formal education activities.
An agreement was signed on 4 December 2018 by Mr. Dries Willems, General Representative of the Government of Flanders to the OECD, the UNESCO and the Council of Europe, and Mrs Gabriella Battaini‐Dragoni, Deputy Secretary General.
Improving access to rights for young refugees and migrants in Europe
The long-term training course Youth.Together was launched on 25 November at the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg. The course supports the social inclusion of young refugees and their access to education, self‐development and autonomy through youth work and non‐formal education activities. 36 youth workers and refugees have taken part in the seminar and designed local projects for social inclusion of refugees. The course now continues with e-learning, mentoring and support to the projects’ implementation. The course will run through to December 2019. The course is made possible thanks to a financial contribution of the Department of Foreign Affairs of Flanders.
39th meeting of the Joint Council on Youth
The co-managed decision-making committee of the youth sector met in Strasbourg on 16 and 17 October 2018. More than 110 governmental and non-governmental representatives took part in these statutory meetings. After an exchange of views with the Director of Democratic Participation, the Joint Council on Youth took a number of landmark decisions...
Bridges to New Beginnings
4-5 December, Strasbourg, France

A seminar on developing synergies between different sectors supporting the inclusion, human rights and participation of young refugees and migrants, which gathered over 50 participants from several fields relevant to enhancing young refugees’ lives in Europe, ranging from migration, youth and health to education and academia.
Human Rights Day at the EYCB
What are human rights? Why are they important? How can they be protected and whose responsibility is it to defend them? These and many other questions about democracy, human rights, social rights, inclusion and other issues were asked and answered during the annual Human Rights Day celebration at the European Youth Centre Budapest.
Human Rights Education with Young People
Compass in Azerbaijani

On 10 December, Human Rights Day, the Youth Department marked the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with two events that make human rights education better and more accessible to young people.

In Baku, a Forum on Human Rights and Citizenship Education with Young People was held to publicly launch Compass and Have Your Say! in Azerbaijani, co-organised by the Council of Europe and the Ministry of Youth and Sport of Azerbaijan.
Human Rights Education with Young People
Compass: Launch and pilot workshop in Germany, workshop in Luxembourg
In Berlin, the German version of Compass was launched in a common press conference of the publishers: the Federal Agency for Civic Education and the German Institute for Human Rights. The launch was marked by a three days pilot workshop attended by human rights educators from formal and non-formal setting. Thomas Krüger, President of Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung and Prof. Dr. Beate Rudolf, Director of the German Institute for Human Rights and Antje Rothemund, Head of the Youth Department participated in both events.In the same spirit, a Compass workshop on human rights was organised in Luxembourg on 8 December by the Zentrum fir politesch Bildung in cooperation with the Council of Europe.
Young people's access to rights - Youth policy and Youth work
Moscow, 25-28 November

More than 60 participants, from governmental and non-governmental bodies, took part in this seminar held in Moscow to get to know and analyse the role and impact of youth policy and youth work in improving young people`s access to rights in the Russian Federation and other states-parties to the European Cultural Convention. The seminar contributed to a better understanding of the implications of a rights-based youth policy in the context of the Council of Europe. It was based on the Recommendation on Young People’s Access to Rights and on the Self-Assessment tool for youth policy, both published  in Russian.
Euro-Arab 50-50 training course
Gender equality and youth participation

This course was held in Doha, Qatar, from 17 to 22 November. It brought together 31 representatives from youth organisations, local and national youth councils and representatives from public authorities from both Council of Europe and the League of Arab States. ​The activity provided space to develop better understanding of youth participation and gender equality in an atmosphere of intensive intercultural learning. The "Compass Manual for Human Rights Education" as well as "Have your Say" manual were highlighted as a comprehensive common ground to develop activities promoting youth participation and gender equality.
Enter! Policy measures for local authorities
In 2018, for the first time local and regional authorities were specifically invited by the Youth Department to propose measures to implement or improve their work on young people’s access to social rights.
Seven activities have been included in the programme, five of them held in November or December in Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Portugal
Enabling Roma Youth participation
Workshops in Croatia and Italy, Forum in Portugal

In 2018 the activities of the Roma Youth Action Plan had a specific focus on developing or enhancing Roma youth participation at national level, notably by building upon processes initiated in 2017 and earlier.
Intercultural learning and the European Youth Centre
A consultative meeting took place from 4 to 6 December at the European Youth Centre in Budapest, to explore past and current approaches towards intercultural
learning and non-formal education, related educational practices and quality standards and their application in the activities at the European Youth Centre. A report with recommendations will be published in the course of 2019.
Recommendation CM/Rec(2017)4 on youth work now available in thirteen languages… and counting
The Recommendation aims to help member states provide quality youth work. In addition to the English and French versions, the recommendation is now available in Bosnian, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, German, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. On this occasion, the CoE Youth Department would like to thank to all ministries in charge of youth affairs for their valuable support.
South-East Europe: state of play of youth work
The peer learning seminar on the state of youth work in South East Europe “SEE youth work” took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 13-15 November. It gave an opportunity to over 50 participants to deepen their understanding of the state of youth work in the region and to promote European support instruments, mechanisms and tools. The event meant to analyse and raise awareness of the state of play of youth work, its contribution to supporting youth policy at different levels and the support for youth work needed from youth policy.
MIRRORS now in Spanish and Catalan
This manual was produced within the Roma Youth Action Plan of the Council of Europe to provide teachers, trainers and facilitators with essential information and methodological tools to address antigypsyism. The Catalan and Spanish versions of the manual Mirrors were produced in collaboration with the City of Barcelona.
A newcomer in the Bookmarks family
The Spanish version of Bookmarks: Orientaciones, Manual para Combatir el Discurso de Odio en Internet a través de la Educación en Derechos Humanos has been published by INJUVE, the Spanish Institute for Youth.
This is the 19th linguistic version of the manual.
Adoption of 2019 work plan of the EU-CoE Partnership
The Partnership Management Board took place in Brussels, Belgium, on 30 November. The directors from both partner institutions exchanged views on the strategic perspectives for further youth cooperation between the institutions, in view of the adoption of the new EU Youth Strategy and elaborating a new youth sector strategy in the Council of Europe. The PMB also approved the 2019 work plan of the EU-CoE youth partnership.
News from the European Youth Foundation (EYF)
The Programming Committee on Youth met at the EYC in Budapest on 13-14 December 2018 and took a final decision on all the grant applications received on 1 October 2018 regarding work plans and one-off international activities for 2019. The EYF also supports Pilot Activities and went to visit one such activity in Stockholm in November. It targeted young migrants and refugees from Stockholm and surrounding areas who gained skills and knowledge to develop and implement projects in their communities.
Continued success for the MOOC on Youth Policy
Following its first successful edition in 2017, the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on youth policy took place again from October to November 2018.
Over 2500 learners registered and about 300 finalised the MOOC, mostly evaluating it as very relevant and useful. 3 webinars were organised as the MOOC components open to the wider public.
Upcoming activities
  • International Youth Seminar "Remembrance and learning from World War II", 18-21 December 2018, Moscow, Russian Federation
  • Training course on ''Access to social rights for young people in Lisbon'', 18-20 December 2018, and launching of the Portuguese translation of the Enter! Recommendation, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 2nd meeting of the drafting group on a Council of Europe youth sector strategy 2030, 22-23 January 2019, European Youth Centre, Budapest
  • Statutory bodies (CMJ/CDEJ/CCJ/CPJ) meetings: CDEJ Bureau, CCJ Bureau and Joint meeting, 24-25 January 2019, European Youth Centre, Budapest
Season's Greetings
THINK YOUTH! would like to wish all its readers a peaceful and restful winter break and a good start into 2019.  The next issue of THINK YOUTH! will be issued in February 2019, watch this space!
Useful links
The CoE Directorate General Democracy
The CoE Youth Portal
European Youth Centre Budapest
European Youth Centre Strasbourg
European Youth Foundation
Intergovernmental Cooperation
The EU-CoE Youth Parthership
Facebook pages
Advisory Council on Youth
Council of Europe - Youth
European Youth Centre Budapest
EU-CoE youth partnership
European Youth Foundation
No Hate Speech Movement
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