Call for European Youth Organisations to join the EU Youth Dialogue process

Do you want to improve the lives of young people in Europe? Does your non-governmental European youth organisation or network have ideas and expertise on topics connected to the future of work, youth work and youth in rural areas to share with decision-makers? Are you committed to consulting with and running activities with other young people on a European scale to get your and their voices heard? Then we have a proposal for you - join the EU Youth Dialogue!

The EU Youth Dialogue is a EU participatory process enabling young people to engage with decision-makers on a given topic by bringing their ideas and proposals to youth policy related topics in the EU. The EU Youth Dialogue supports the implementation of the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027, and is a successor of the Structured Dialogue with young people.
It involves consultations and dialogue activities across Europe delivered by the National Working Groups that relate to youth organisations and young people in their countries. European youth organisations and networks are invited to join the EU Youth Dialogue through this call to add an additional European perspective.

The EU Youth Dialogue is organised in 18 month Cycles, following the framework of the Trio Presidency of the EU in the youth field. The current Cycle is running from January 2019 and will finish by June 2020, covering the Romanian, Finnish and Croatian Presidencies.

Read more about the EU Youth Strategy here: https://ec.europa.eu/youth/policy/youth-strategy_en
Read more about the EU Youth Dialogue here: https://ec.europa.eu/youth/policy/youth-strategy/euyouthdialogue_en

In line with the Council Work Plan for the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2020, the topic for this Cycle is “Creating Opportunities for Youth” with three sub-themes:
-Youth and the future of work;
-Youth Work, focusing on education and training of youth workers (paid / voluntary);
-Youth in Rural areas.

How you will be contributing?

1. If selected, you will be invited to organise consultations and discussions with young people to add a European perspective to the numerous youth voices that would collectively feed into the policy-making processes.
2. Furthermore, the Trio Presidency will be encouraged to associate you to further consideration of your inputs including at the occasion of the EU Youth Conferences that they will organise, insofar as is relevant in relation to the topic and your expertise.
3. Lastly, you will be not only contributing to the dialogue and consultations with young people, but also will share your perspectives on follow up on implementation of Youth Goals and the EU Youth Dialogue at large.

Meanwhile it is an opportunity:

-To contribute to the largest youth participation process in the EU to influence the EU’s policies for young people.
-To connect to other young people and youth representatives working on the topics;
-To learn more about EU Youth Policy;
-To contribute to the EU Youth Conferences and possibly attend some of them;

We are looking specifically for non-governmental European youth organisations and networks to join the process. Each European organisation or network is selected for its expertise on the topic/-s (youth and the future of work, youth work, and youth in rural areas) and its ability to run a broad consultation process with young people in accordance with the suggested methodology.

In order for their application to be considered, the organisation applying must:
-Be a non-governmental youth organisation or network working at the European level (having member organisations from minimum 6 EU Member States).
-Commit to the entire process from the moment of selection (March 2019) to the end of June 2020.
-Have knowledge and expertise on the given topic, thanks to projects or past activities carried on the topic.
-Be motivated to contribute to joint policy discussions of young people and policy-makers.
-Be able to support the nominated representative through the duration of entire process, in order to carry out discussions and consultations with young people.

One representative from applying organisation should be nominated to participate in the process. They should:
-Be between 18 and 30 years old.
-Have a good command of the English language.
-Have a very good expertise in one or multiple of the given topics of youth work, future of work and youth in rural areas under the headline “Creating Opportunities for Youth”.
-Be committed to contribute to the process by running consultations, providing expertise and be open to representing the views gathered at the EU Youth Conference. The consultation process and activities will be concentrated in the time period between end of April 2019 until end of October 2019.
-Be committed to contribute to and compile a report together with other participating European organisations and networks, reflecting the views of young people participating in the consultation process (end October - November 2019).
-Be ready to participate in events and online meetings with other organisations, the European Youth Forum and other involved actors (maximum once a month online).

The EU Youth Conference in Bucharest (The first out of three EU Youth Conferences of the Cycle)

Furthermore, the first EU Youth Conference organised by the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (RO PRES) will take place in Bucharest from 25th to 28th of March 2019. The European Youth Forum will select 10 participants from the selected European organisations and networks who will follow the entire Cycle of the EU Youth Dialogue. The selection will be done based on the expertise of the organisation and the nominated representatives. If your organisation is interested to begin this journey with attending the EU Youth Conference, please indicate it below under the selection questions. The travel and accommodation costs, as well as the meals for the duration of the conference for selected participants will be covered by the organisers.

The EU Youth Conference in Bucharest will focus on:

• Addressing and discussing with decision-makers challenges of young people related to future of work and youth policies.
• Testing best approaches and practices of the implementation and running of the EU Youth Dialogue activities.
• Putting in practice the Youth Goal on “quality employment for all”: http://youthgoals.eu/

In case of general questions about this call please do not hesitate to contact Līva Vikmane, Policy Officer on Youth Policy at the European Youth Forum to liva.vikmane@youthforum.org

Related link:
https://database.youthforum.org