On 13 July 2021, a two-week online training seminar began for the teams of the Opishnia community (Poltava oblast), Prysyvashshia community (Kherson oblast), Uzhhorod community (Zakarpattia oblast) – partners of the Council of Europe Project “Youth for Democracy in Ukraine”

This is the second meeting of the communities' teams within the third stage of the “Young People - Full Citizens” component, aiming to support meaningful youth participation at the local level by reviewing youth policy and implementing the necessary measures based on the Council of Europe standards. The aim of the training seminar is to strengthen the capacities of representatives of the partner communities of the Council of Europe project “Youth for Democracy in Ukraine” to implement youth policy at the local level and carry out youth work based on civic engegment and youth participation approaches.

In the course of the training seminar, the teams' representatives of the project partner communities jointly explore and discuss:

• the role of young people in the life of the community and the community in the life of young people (opportunities and areas of responsibility);
• inclusive approaches in youth policy and youth work, recognising the value of the participation of different categories of youth;
• standards and approaches of the Council of Europe and the legislation of Ukraine in the field of youth policy and youth work, the ability to apply them in practice;
• the potential of youth councils and youth centres to strengthen youth participation and their possible impact on making decisions related to the lives of young people in the community;
• legal framework regulating certain issues of the work of youth centres, and examples of advocacy of their proposals;
• youth work forms and methods, in particular approaches to non-formal education, etc.

One of the tasks of the training seminar is to create a space for sharing opinions, networking, and finding new partners for teams' representatives of the partner communities of the Council of Europe project “Youth for Democracy in Ukraine”.

During the second day of the training seminar, the teams of the communities reviewed the results of a study of the state of youth policy and needs conducted by the research team of the Council of Europe project in ten partner communities during February-March 2021. These results enabled the communities’ teams to discuss the relevance of the ideas proposed for implementation in the context of cooperation with the Council of Europe project “Youth for Democracy in Ukraine” and to analyse these ideas using the RMSOS approach (Right-Means-Space-Opportunities-Support) compliant with the Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life.

The Project “Youth for Democracy in Ukraine” is implemented within the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2022 and is based on previous experience and fruitful bilateral cooperation between the Council of Europe and the Ministry of Youth and Sport of Ukraine within the Framework Programme on Cooperation between the Council of Europe and the Ministry of Youth and Sport of Ukraine in the Field of Youth Policy for 2016-2020.

Read more about the Council of Europe's project and resources in the field of youth at: https://www.coe.int/uk/web/kyiv/youth-for-democracy-in-ukraine