The official quarterly newsletter of Don Bosco Youth-Net ivzw

NL 33 (Spring 2009)

Editorial - News from the network - News from the partners

Dossier - Little voices

EDITORAL

It are exiting times for Don Bosco Youth-Net ivzw, because at our meeting of the General Executive Body in March the network adopted a new master plan for the period 2009-2011. This new master plan clearly shows that Don Bosco Youth-Net ivzw is willing and ready for taking the next step, which is expanding our network. In this process it is important to not to forget our identity. We are not a commercial organisation which needs to be managed in order to maximise profits. Nor is this master plan a business plan to be followed rigidly to reach that aim.

The master plan suggests a strategy; a path to walk together. If we carry it out it will lead us to the results we've set forward together. But, if at any stage the actions do not support its priority, we need to be open to change the route. Only in this way our master plan can become a roadmap to reaching the full potential of the network.

To download our new master plan surf to http://www.donboscoyouth.net/node/77.

Rein Meus,

General Secretary of Don Bosco Youth-Net ivzw

NEWS FROM THE NETWORK

Equiping young volunteers

"Equiping young Volunteers: Training Course on how to manage YiA projects from inception to post-evaluation" is a training course (TC) which focuses on training and empowering participants to work together in an international team to organise, lead, and evaluate international youth activities through the ‘Youth in Action' Programme. The participants will be trained in the inclusion of disadvantaged youth in their projects. The participants are mostly experienced volunteer youth leaders who are motivated to take responsibility in youth organisations or the organising of international youth initiatives. By the end of the TC, participants will plan activities which they will implement both locally and on a European level. So the most important goal is to gain expertise on project management for the work of each of the individual partner organizations with the program YOUTH in ACTION.

Read more: http://www.donboscoyouth.net/node/451

Erasmus & Leonardo

Our search for possibilities in opening the international secretariat for young people to get work experience keeps going on. In January we decided not to offer an EVS host place for the time being. The simple reason is that what we currently can offer the volunteer is closer to an internship than a voluntary service. Therefore we decided to shift our perspective to other mobility programmes, like Erasmus and Leonardo da vinci, which both offer internships. We have started up contacts with the University of Leuven, JABOK in Prague and the Fachhochschule in Benediktbeuern to see how we can develop an Erasmus internship. At the same time we started the process of looking for a sending organisation for a Leonardo-project. So, if you are studying in Prague or Benediktbeuern, and you are interested in doing an internship in Leuven or if you are just graduated from higher education, and want to do an internship in our organisation to get work experience, please contact the international secretariat.

Meeting of the General Executive Body

This year meeting of the network took place at Savio House in Bollington. In the marvellous retreat house of Salesians in UK the network discussed the action plan for 2009. The traditional exchange market is the method to create new activities and cooperation inside the network. At Bollington some new European training courses and new activities in European Volunteers Service have been worked out, which put special attention to the topic of Education and Human Rights. This issue will be for example at the centre of a network meeting in October this year in Brussels. (Salesian) NGOs dealing with education towards Human Rights and NGOs working with marginalized young people will be invited to join this event.

The network also faces financial challenges and all members are asked to search for further funds. Furthermore it needs to explore how it can better fulfil its tasks as observer member of European Youth Forum. To conclude with a positive note: The network is still growing, this year Don Bosco International from Belgium took on the engagement of an observer status.

Youth Democracy Project

In the second half of this year Don Bosco Youth-Net ivzw together with Jeugddienst Don Bosco will organise a Youth Democracy Project called You(th) for Human Rights. "You(th) for Human Rights" brings together young people active in organisations who are working with non-formal education on one side and young people working with youth who are facing fewer opportunities like minor-aged refugees, Roma youth, homeless young people and young people in special youth care. They will exchange their experiences and opinions with peers from different countries and with policy makers active in the field of Human Rights. The framework of this exchange are methods coming out of Human Rights Education. Furthermore the project promotes local and international youth initiatives as a way for the participants to keep on being listened to.

From preparation to evaluation the project will take up to 6 months. The main activity of the project is a European Youth Congress on Human Rights Education, which will take place in Brussels. Around 50 young people from 12 EU countries will attend this Congress, representing the local organisations. There are 2 national meetings planned to prepare and evaluate the project. We will also develop a booklet which will disseminate the outcomes of the project. The application form has been submitted to the Flemish National Agency , and we are expecting their answer early May. If it is accepted this could be the start of something new inside the network.

Administrative grants for the international secretariat

This month we receive some good news from the European Youth Foundation. For 2009 they are granting us € 6.881,00 for the administration of the network. We were able to receive this grant because another project of ours (DIALOGUE) was approved last year. The European Youth Foundation is part of the Council of Europe. We also received the news that our administrative grant from the Youth in Action -programme is going to be continued in 2009. This Grant forms the financial backbone of our organisation, so we are happy to prolong our partnership with the European Union.

NEWS FROM THE PARTNERS

Mumbai visits SPYS (Malta)

On Saturday 17th January Fr Savio Silveira SDB and Vice Provincial of the Mumbai Province, Fr Godfrey D'Souza SDB spent a day in Malta discussing the future, volunteering cooperation between the Salesian Pastoral Youth Service (SPYS) and the province. 

Read more: http://www.donboscoyouth.net/node/456

SADBA promoted volunteering at the "Youth employment in times of crisis" conference (Czech Republic)

The event of the European Youth Forum "Youth employment in times of crisis" subtitled "An EU - Youth dialogue in the Zlin Region" was held in a small spa town Luhacovice in the south-east of the Czech Republic from 20th till 21st January 2009.

Read more: http://www.donboscoyouth.net/node/457

Jeugddienst Don Bosco vzw celebrates 50 years (Belgium)

In 2009 Jeugddienst Don Bosco vzw (Youth service Don Bosco) will celebrate its fiftieth birthday. There is a whole series of celebrations planned, but in the centre of it all will be a jubilee-event. The volunteers will have a central place in this jubilee. We want to thank them in a special way, because they have made our organisation possible throughout all those years.

More information can be found on http://www.jeugddienstdonbosco.be

Many friends of Don Bosco in Europe (Don Bosco International - Brussels)

The yearly reception of DBI in Brussels - almost now a tradition - was held at the new residence of COMECE (Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community). Fr. Meinolf von Spee, president of DBI was glad that Msgr. Luc van Looy SDB, Bishop of Gent, had accepted the invitation to present to a very international audience from over 12 European countries the experiences of 150 Years of Salesian Congregation

SPYS launches new website

SPYS is currently in the phase of changing its website into a new, revamped page! The new website will be more interactive including a calendar, a photo album, ongoing updated news and much more! We encourage you visit our website which is now in its early version, but will very soon be fully functional once again with more to see than before.

Log on now to http://www.spysmalta.org !

AMICUS and Celebration of Civil Service in Vatican (Aktionszentrum - Germany)

The Italian National Civil Service has been celebrated on the 28th in the Vatican City State at the presence of the Pope. Volunteers from all over Italy came to Rome celebrating the 8th year of activities. This occasion was also a good possibility to give visibility to the European project AMICUS: representatives of the participating organisations (Aktionszentrum Benediktbeuern from the DBYN network) were presented to the responsible authorities of the Italian presidency of the council of ministries. This was the occasion for sharing experiences and planning the project in all its steps. The first preparation took place at the National Office for Civil Service (UNSC) the day before with representatives of all the seven involved organisations.

Read more: http://www.donboscoyouth.net/node/484

Touching Lives Through Sports (SPYS - Malta)

In the weekend between Friday 20th and Sunday 22nd March, SPYS (Salesian Pastoral Youth Service) organized a residential seminar at Savio College, Dingli. The name of the seminar was ‘Touching Lives Through Sports', with the main aim being to teach young adults how to educate and develop children's creativity and physical education by means, and with the help, of sports.

Read more: http://www.donboscoyouth.net/node/483

Meeting of trainers (Mladinski-Ceh - Slovenia)

The meeting was held on Tuesday, 17.3.2009. We started at 6 pm with a group photo session for the archieve. The picture that was taken is a mystery of its own. An inexperienced phototographer took all the heads and bodies away.

Read more: http://www.donboscoyouth.net/node/480

SPYS & Friends Walkabout (SPYS - Malta)

Sunday the 15th of March was a perfect bright day for the Salesian Pastoral Youth Service's (SPYS) monthly outreach session organised by SPYS & Friends. This month's activity named SPYS & Friends 'Walkabout' brought fifty youths together and consisted of a walk around Dingli where the youth got a chance to mingle socially. After the walk, everyone got together for some fun activities and games at Savio College. The afternoon ended off in a traditional SPYS reflection moment and spent some quiet time reflecting in the chapel. 

Read more: http://www.donboscoyouth.net/node/479

Generously building for the future (SWM - Poland)

Thanks to funding by the Polish Ministry for Foreign Affairs the Salesian Missionary Volunteer Service in Krakow "Youth for the World" has been able to undertake several projects in Africa, putting up buildings and providing training opportunities.

Read more: http://www.infoans.org/1.asp?Lingua=2&sez=1&sotsez=13&doc=3600

New preventive strategies against addiction (Federazione SCS - Italy)

The SCS/CNOS (Civil and Social Services - National Centre for Salesian Works ) Federation - Salesians in social work have begun a new project aimed at preventing drug use by teenagers. The project aims at contacting those dealing with addiction, the schools, and informal groups of youngsters with whom it is difficult to organise joint efforts. It is an attempt to try out, then evaluate and spread widely a new approach to the prevention of drug abuse by directly contacting youngsters and those public or private bodies already working in the field locally so as to create an educative community capable of recognising, understanding and responding to deviant behaviour of the young.

Read more: http://www.infoans.org/1.asp?Lingua=2&sez=1&sotsez=13&doc=3583

Youth meets politics (Don Bosco International - Brussels)

20 young people from 5 countries had an internship of one week in the European Parliament. They experienced European Politics at first hand as each worked together with a member of the European Parliament from his country for one week. The young people participated in party meetings, committee assemblies and hearings, took up tasks for their deputy and produced papers for their offices.

The European Trainee Week is part of a campaign "Youth meets politics" to motivate young people to participate in the upcoming elections of the European Parliament this year. The idea of this type of European youth exchange was developed by Kolping-Youth Europe three years ago and Don Bosco International joined the project to offer this practical experience of politics to more young people from different countries.

Mr. Hans Pöttering, president of European Parliament, took over the patronage and at the end of the week offered part of his time for an evaluation meeting with the group. He was delighted to learn how much the young trainees had learned about European Policy. "My MEP explained so many issues to me. I never thought that the EU is so inspiring", said Ana from Romania. Other voices: "I will invite young people to vote" (Claudia from Poland); "I did not expect to assist in decision-making" (Tom from Germany).

Mr. Lejeune, head of the Youth in Action department at the European Commission emphasised in his address at the opening of the week that the outreach of this project will go beyond the participants and reach their organisations as all of them become multipliers in youth work setting.

DOSSIER

When in 2007 the EU funding programmes for the period 2007-2013 were started, a new item was added to the selection criteria of most of them: the dissemination and exploitation of results. In the beginning it was not really clear what the commission specifically intended with this new concept. Don Bosco Youth-Net ivzw even organised a seminar (Follow-up and promotion, March 2007, Vienna) on the topic to see what it could mean in practice within the Youth in Action programme.

One of the basic examples for the concept of dissemination and exploitation of results is/was a SALTO initiative is from the SALTO participation centre. Their website Youth initiatives Compendium is an online database with completed youth initiatives and a place to find new partners to set-up new youth initiatives. In this way it combines the possibility of getting inspired by previous projects, and using that to find new partners to start-up similar activities. The database can be accessed from http://www.salto-youth.net/static/yic/. We indicated is/was, because there are no new projects added after 2005. In other terms, the platform is dead, or at least sleeping.

However since 2007 some new tools were created:

• The SALTO inclusion centre produced a booklet called "Making waves - Creating more impact with your youth projects". This booklet wants to inspire Youth in Action users to raise the visibility of Youth in Action projects and to improve the dissemination and exploitation of the project's results. It can be downloaded from the website http://www.salto-youth.net/makingwaves/.
• The Executive Agency for Education, Audiovisual and Culture started to promote the outcomes of previous projects through compendia. Each department publishes compendia of approved projects on their webpages. To get an overview of those of Youth in Action surf to http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/youth/results_compendia/compendia_en.php. Also the programme guide of Youth in Action has some suggestions on the dissemination and exploitation of results of a project.
• The EU Education and Culture Directorate-General has released a website which offers a full overview on what it expects from the dissemination and exploitation of project results. On http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/valorisation/ you can find precise information on what it considered essential to the matter, a toolbox which to facilitate the actual practice and a list of resources which can be consulted to reach a more in-depth understanding of the topic.
• Finally, last month a new online dissemination platform has been release by the Education and Culture Directorate-General: EVE. This platform brings together all the programmes of the Directorate-General: "Lifelong learning", "Culture", "Youth in Action" and "Citizenship". Through its collaborative approach, the EVE platform is an innovative tool offering users a centralised vision of the majority of funded projects. It can be accessed via http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/eve/.

It is likely to say that EVE will not be the ultimate step into the development process of tools for dissemination and exploitation of results. The updating of such a database depends on the initiative of project promoters, which need a constant follow-up. Otherwise it will likely lead to the same result as the SALTO Youth Initiatives Compendium. On the other hand it is a mayor step forwards, because it offers the users of Community actions for the first time a centralised platform where they can share the outcomes of their projects. This will put the outcomes immediately into a larger EU dimension. In the end this might not be the ultimate step, but at least it reaches for the ultimate aim. Bringing back the outcomes of projects to the whole European Community.

LITTLE VOICES

Keys are powerful symbols of authority and control. They give you freedom to go where others cannot, and power to bar others from certain areas. Each time a new key goes onto the key ring another part of my kingdom is established. The access to rooms, equipment, money, files and transport grown with my key ring. Losing my keys can feel like losing my soul. The key is a symbol of my power to open things, up and give access to people and gather people together safely.

But there is another bunch of keys that I carry. Keys that don't weigh in my pockets and keys I can never lose. A smile can be a key to a conversation. A word of apology can open up a life-time of friendship. A warm welcome can be the key that turns a person's day around. Even a timely and kindly reprimand can unlock the opportunity for someone to change their behaviour. Don Bosco saw each young person's heart as a fortress that can only be opened up by a friendly approach. For him three keys were important: respect, understanding and affection. All people need to be dealt with reasonably, consistently and with warmth. Behind those keys leis a basic trust in the deep-down goodness of people; ready to be unlocked at the right time.

David O'Mally SDB (from the booklet Ordinary Ways)