Enter! Youth Meeting 2015
Access to social rights for all young people
30 June – 3 July 2015
European Youth Centre Strasbourg
DRAFT
PROGRAMME
Background information
In 2009, the Council of Europe’s youth sector initiated the Enter! project aiming to support youth policy and youth work responses to exclusion, discrimination and violence affecting young people, particularly in multicultural disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This project was set at the initiative of the European Steering Committee on Youth and the Advisory Council on Youth, the governmental and non-governmental partners of the youth sector of the Council of Europe, as a response to matters of social cohesion and inclusion of young people. The main concerns that informed the project were the multi-dimensional social and economic imbalances associated with young people living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and which put them at a disadvantage in accessing social human rights. The methodology of the project sought alternative ways of thinking and practicing youth work, starting from the involvement of young people themselves, relying on the competent action of youth workers and youth organisations and seeking medium and long-term impact through youth policies at local and national level. The Enter! project draws on the experience of the Council of Europe youth sector in developing non-formal learning and training of youth workers in order to explore ways of responding to challenges faced by young people and youth work institutions.
The Enter! project promotes access to social rights for young people, in particular of those exposed to social exclusion, discrimination and violence, through a variety of local, national and European interventions involving policy-makers, youth work actors and young people. The objectives of the Enter! project are:
- to address situations of social exclusion, discrimination and violence affecting young people through non-formal education and youth work projects;
- to develop the competences of youth workers to initiate, support and evaluate projects for and with young people as a tool for youth empowerment and youth participation for access to social rights;
- to develop conceptual, educational and practical means of translating access to social rights for young people into the realities of youth work and policy making;
- to advocate for the access of young people to social rights, particularly by developing partnerships between civil society actors, young people and policy makers, at local, national and European levels;
- to advocate for policy responses that promote access to social rights for young people, particularly by supporting the implementation of the CM/Rec(2015)3 Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation to the member states on the access of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods to social rights.
One core element of the Enter! project is putting young people and youth-led initiatives at the heart of solutions for improving their access to social rights. For example, through the Enter! long-term training course for youth workers/leaders, a number of local youth projects were developed and young people who have difficulties in exercising their social rights learnt more about their rights, or developed skills to claim them. These local projects were based on active participation of young people, intercultural learning and human rights education, and also addressed specific challenges to social rights. A first Enter! Youth Meeting was organised in 2011 and one of the expectations voiced was for the Council of Europe to give higher visibility and recognition to young people and their initiatives for social rights[1]. Furthermore, with the policy recommendation now adopted, the role of youth work and youth policy needs to be further and effectively promoted. The role of public bodies, and particularly local and regional authorities, remains key for the implementation of policies on access to social rights.
In this context, the Enter! Youth Meeting will be a large-scale event through which 200 young people from across Europe, youth workers and local and regional authorities’ representatives will meet, exchange practices related to the promotion of access to social rights and contribute to the implementation of the Enter! policy recommendation.
The youth meeting will be an intercultural learning opportunity for participants, and as such an expected outcome is that participants learn more about social rights, situations and responses in other countries, as well as about the work of the Council of Europe in this field. Participants will also learn about the situation of young people in different countries.
Another expected outcome consists of input for the Enter! policy recommendation to be implemented at different levels, particularly local and national. Participants will also provide input to the work of the Council of Europe in the field of young people’s access to rights and develop a message for the Council of Europe and other stakeholders related to the support to the work on access to social rights.
The event is expected to bring more visibility to youth issues within the Council of Europe.
During the event, participants will learn more about the policy framework of the Council of Europe. Participants from local and regional authorities will learn more about the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities Resolution 319 (2010) on the integration of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
Partnerships and networking will also be among the expected outcomes of the meeting.
Aim and objectives of the Enter! Youth Meeting
The Enter! Youth Meeting will bring together young people active in youth work projects to discuss ways to make the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation on Access of Young people from Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods to Social Rights a reality for young people across Europe[2]. The objectives of the meeting are:
- To provide young people with the opportunity to have their voice heard and to be associated with the work of the Council of Europe;
- To learn about young people’s experiences of access to social rights;
- To share youth work and youth policy practices and responses to situations of exclusion, discrimination and violence affecting young people;
- To elaborate further on the needs and possibilities for the implementation of the Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation to the member states on the access of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods to social rights;
- To collect proposals for future orientations of the Council of Europe’s work in the area of young people’s access to rights, autonomy and social inclusion.
Draft programme
Monday, 29 June 2015
Arrival of participants
Registration at European Youth Centre
19:00 Dinner
20:30 Welcome evening
Tuesday, 30 June 2015
09:15Opening of the Enter! Youth Meeting
Snežana Samardžić-Marković, Director General of Democracy, Council of Europe
Lilit Chilingaryan, Advisory Council on Youth, Council of Europe
Enter! project participants
09:45Getting to know each other
10:30Introduction to the Youth Meeting: programme, objectives, introduction to the message of the Meeting
11:00 Break
11:30 Introduction to social rights
13:00 Lunch break
15:00Common vision, diversity of practices of youth work on access to social rights
16:00 Break
16:30 Common vision, diversity of practices of youth work on access to social rights
19:00 Dinner
20:30Intercultural sharing evening
Wednesday, 1 July 2015
09:15 Stories of youth work on access to social rights by Enter! project participants
09:45Making social rights a reality: the role of the Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation Rec(2015)3 on Access of Young people from Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods to Social Rights
with Rui Gomes, Head of the Education and Training Division, Youth Department, Council of Europe
10:30Working groups on making social rights a reality: sharing about social rights and young people’s situation
11:00 Break
11:30Working groups on making social rights a reality: sharing about social rights and young people’s situation
13:00 Lunch break
15:00 Social rights in practice: visits to local organisations and services and educational activities
19:00 Dinner in town (self-organised)
Free evening
Thursday, 2 July 2015
09:15 Stories of youth work on access to social rights by Enter! project participants
09:45Making social rights a reality: the approaches of the Youth Department of the Council of Europe to promoting access to social rights
with Antje Rothemund, Head of the Youth Department of the Council of Europe
10:30 Making social rights a reality: working groups on proposals for action plans and follow- up activities by participants and by the Council of Europe
11:00 Break
11:30 Making social rights a reality: working groups on proposals for action plans and follow- up activities by participants and by the Council of Europe
13:00 Lunch break
15:00 Learning from each other and networking
Revising the message of the Enter! Youth Meeting
19:00 Dinner
20:30 Enter! Party
Friday, 3 July 2015
09:15 Sharing outcomes of action plans and follow-up
11:00 Break
11:30 Final message and official closing
Reflections about the meeting by Ingrid Ramberg, the general rapporteur
Malcolm Byrne, Thematic Spokesperson on Youth, Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe
Gabriella Battaini - Dragoni, Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe
12:30 Lunch and departure of participants
[1] See the full Message of the meeting to the Council of Europe