With a kick-off meeting from the 25th till the 28th of November 2018, the project “Strengthening the role of youth work in contesting dynamics of shrinking cities” was successfully started in the Human Rights House, in Zagreb, Croatia. Read this post to get to know more.
Partner organisations from 4 European countries met in Zagreb to discuss the challenges connected to the phenomenon of “shrinking cities”across the European Union and how to deal with it through youth work. The project aims to contribute to the creation of new strategies of social inclusion and civic engagement for youth residing in Europe’s “shrinking cities”. The project is coordinated by Documenta – Center for Dealing with the Past, a non-governmental organisation from Zagreb.
With a set of different project activities, the partners will focus on good practices from youth workers in shrinking cities in Croatia, Spain, Portugal and Germany. The project will focus on studying the shrinking cities through collections, analyses, and comparison of both the similarities and differences in policy and development, related to youth work in these 4 countries. The foreseen publication will be based on the mapping and analysis of best practices of youth work in the partner countries, with the geographical focus on shrinking cities and regions. The results will be disseminated in an online toolbox for youth workers in shrinking cities (and beyond), with the purpose to strengthen the competences of youth workers through sharing of new and innovative approaches.
Representatives from CGE e.V., Moritz Borchardt and Dr. Ammalia Podlaszewska are involved in this project. During three intensively shared days the representatives of the partner organisations got to know each other. The key terms, goals and tasks of the project, as well as financial agreements and administrative questions were addressed and discussed. An action plan was devised on the project timeline and the content related tasks were distributed among the partners.
In addition to the kick-off meeting in Zagreb, the participants will meet again in January 2019 in Weimar, with a purpose to discuss the methodology of the forthcoming mapping activities. The closing conference will happen in April 2020 in Zagreb and will offer a chance to participants to present the outcomes of the survey to the wider audience, as well as discuss future cooperation steps.
The project brings together eight partner organisations: Documenta – Centar za suočavanje s prošlošću (Croatia), Mreža Mladih Hrvatske (Croatia), Culture goes Europe (CGE) – SoziokulturelleInitiative Erfurt e. V. (Germany), Stiftung EuropäischeJugendbildungs – und Jugendbegegnungsstätte Weimar (Germany), UMAR – União de Mulheres Alternativa e Resposta (Portugal), YouthCoop – Cooperativa para o Desenvolvimento e Cidadania (Portugal), Asociación Caminos – Asociación para el intercambio educación y desarrollo social (Spain) and Colegio Oficial de Doctores y Licenciados en Ciencias Políticas y Sociología de Andalucía (Spain).
