From 13 to 17 September, the EYF visited the “PoEM - Palette of Emotions: Supporting Young People’s Emotional Wellbeing through Art”, implemented by Youth for Exchange and Understanding (YEU)*, a long-standing EYF partner. The project tackles the need for mental health and emotional wellbeing of young people and resilience through equipping youth workers and volunteers with skills to carry out artistic activities with young people.

The activity brought together 18 youth workers from 8 different countries from the YEU network to evaluate local art-for-well-being actions, consolidate learning outcomes and co-create the “Art-vocacy for Well-being in Non-Formal Education (NFE)” manual. Participants also planned a transnational campaign on emotional well-being, inclusion and responsible digital participation that will be rolled-out on the social media channels of the YEU.

The activity took place in Mollina, Spain, within the framework of the University on Youth and Development (UYD)**, a long-standing youth University coordinated by the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe (NSC), where various youth-led and youth-serving organisations operating at national and international level come together to run activities under this year theme “AI, Youth and Peace: Preventing cybercrime and digital harm through responsible AI governance”.

The activity was supported by the European Youth Foundation through a grant for a long-term international youth co-operation activity.

In addition to the field visit, thanks to the UYD networking fair, participants of the UYD were able to learn more about the funding opportunities offered by EYF and to discover some of the educational tools of the Youth Department of the Council of Europe, such as Compass, Compasito and the Gender Matters manuals.

*Youth for Exchange and Understanding is an international organisation founded in 1986 that works to promote peace, understanding and co-operation between the young people of the world, in a spirit of respect for human rights.

**The UYD is an international youth event part of the iLEGEND III Joint programme co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe. The UYD is organised by the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe, in partnership with a number of youth-led and youth-oriented organisations who have the possibility to run their own activities (trainings, seminars, board meetings, etc.) within a dynamic and participatory context which encourages networking, cooperation and peer-to-peer education.

Since 2000 the UYD represents an international hub for meetings, youth advocacy and exchange of good practices. It gathers, for one week, hundreds of young people, youth workers, decision makers, experts from the field and institutional representatives, providing them all with a space to meet, debate, build their capacities and cooperate on youth policy issues.