Take a Way Box! – Day 1

Our evaluation meeting “Take a Way Box!” will be happening in Strasbourg, France, for the next 2 days! Gathering 64 people, this meeting is the third and last activity of our work plan on youth participation “Shake the Box! – Alternative ways of Participation“.

Young people, youth workers and external stakeholders are attending this event to share their experiences of Youth Participation in the frame of our work plan and to evaluate its whole process and impacts. 

Opening and (re)connecting

During the first session of the day, the team of facilitators introduced the programme and aim of the 2-day evaluation meeting “Take a Way Box!”. The group of participants was shown the videos made during the two previous activities of the Work Plan: the seminar “Participation out of the Box!” and the training course for young people “Participation Toolbox!”. They then got to know each other better thanks to an icebreaker activity.

Time to present

The next session allowed each of the delegations (1 young person, 1 youth worker and 1 external stakeholder) to present to the rest of the group the local action they had implemented at local level in the frame of the long term project. In total, 23 actions were developed in 16 different countries over the past months.

These actions tackled issues and topics such as: environment, social inclusion of vulnerable groups, gender issues and discrimination towards/within the LGBTQIA+ community, non-formal education, youth participation and youth empowerment, health and mental health, intercultural learning and European mobility opportunities…

Meeting with European Stakeholders

During the afternoon, the group recieved the visit of representatives of European institutions and stakeholders: 

• Patricia Gaspar, General Consul of Portugal in Strasbourg
• Lucille Ehrhart, assistant of MEP Anne Sander
• Joao Pereira, Programme Adviser at the CoE Unit on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
• Emma Smith, Assistant at the CoE Unit on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

To present their work on Youth Participation, the group was divided in three thematic groups according to the topic of their local actions: Environment; Development of soft skills for young people + access to public spaces; Access to health + inequalities and fundamental rights.

Each group got to present their initiatives to the stakeholders, explaining the challenges and successes they had faced during the whole process. Following these presentations, the participants were invited to ask questions to the representatives, share their realities and hear their advices on how to reach decision makers and involve them in their actions.