The official newsflash of Don Bosco Youth-Net ivzw

NF 106 (March 2010)

News from the network - News from the partners - European Youth Forum

Calls & Public information - Picture of the Month 

NEWS FROM THE NETWORK

Welcome Martina

Since the 22th of February we have a new person working in the international secretariat: Martina Finck. Martina is doing an internship of 22 weeks with us through a scholarship of the Erasmus programme. She will be taking part in our upcoming activities so you can meet her in person. If you want to contact her, you can use following address: martina.finck@donboscoyouth.net [2].

SOCIALware

Don Bosco Youth-Net ivzw has been recognized by SOCIALware as a NGO. This means we can now buy office software for very low prices.

More info: http://www.socialware.be [3]

G.E.B. 2010

On Friday 12 and Saturday 13 the members of our General Executive Body will meet in Prague for their annual meeting. On the programme are the usual points like the financial report 2009 and the activity report 2009. We will also work on 6 proposals for the future of DBYN. If you are interested in what will be on the agenda, you can request the documents of the G.E.B. at the international secretariat by sending an email to rein.meus@donboscoyouth.net [4].

New email addresses

The international secretariat has changed its email addresses:

• general information: info@donboscoyouth.net [1] 
• general secretary: rein.meus@donboscoyouth.net [4] 
• internship: martina.finck@donboscoyouth.net [2] 
• the old donbosconet@skynet.be [5] will gradually be faded out

Upcoming activities

In the first part of the year we are organising 3 activities for which we are looking for participants. If you are interested in doing something European, get in contact with your local DBYN organisation. These are the activities we have in store for you:

• 11-14/03/2010 in Prague: Seminar on youth advocacy "Speaking up - Youth Advocacy as Tool for Active Citizenship" (http://www.donboscoyouth.net/node/598 [6])
• 04-11/04/2010 in Benediktbeuern: Training course on project management "Empower and involve - STEP 2 training course 2010" (http://www.donboscoyouth.net/node/597 [7])
• 18-25/07/2010 in Krakow: Youth exchange on intercultural learning "Intercultural Crossroads in Europe" (http://www.donboscoyouth.net/node/599 [8])

NEWS FROM THE PARTNERS

From experience to action

This is a video of DBYN of the Seminar International Meeting of Ex-Volunteers at the Salesianum in Munich in November 2009. It shows the exchange of experiences among international volunteers. It let them get active in future projects working on two different levels: active citizenship (through action 1.2 Youth initiatives) and youth participation in democratic life (through action 1.3 Youth democracy Projects). The project was funded by the Youth in Action Programme.

To see the video please surf to http://www.youtube.com/dbyntv [9] or go directly to the film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vEEJn6KFLc [10]

EUROPEAN YOUTH FORUM

Intergroup on Youth

A new era for youth issues has started. The constitutive meeting of the first ever Intergroup on Youth took place during the Plenary Session on Thursday, February 11 in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. For the first time in its history the European Parliament, will have a new instrument to better address the expectations and need of young people. The newly created Intergroup gathers around 20 Member of the European Parliament across political parties and parliamentary committees to discuss and encourage youth employment, mobility and active citizenship for young people. Additionally to that the Intergroup also aims at getting young people feel closer to Europe, bridging the gap between young people and the European Union. The intergroup is a follow-up action of the Written Declaration 33/2008 on devoting more attention to youth empowerment in EU policies.

The members elected today Damien ABAD (PPE) as Chairman of the Intergroup and 4 Vice-Chairmen in charge of the specific priorities of the Intergroup: active citizenship - Ramona MANESCU (ADLE); education - Pablo ZALBA BIDEGAIN (PPE); mobility - Franziska Katharina BRANTNER (GREENS/EFA); social inclusion and youth autonomy - Eider GARDIAZABAL (S-D).

Amongst others, the members of the Intergroup include Sidonia JEDRZEJEWSKA (PPE, former Vice President of the European Youth Forum 2001-2002), Katarina NEVEDALOVA (S-D, Vice President of ECOSY), Silvia COSTA (S-D), Georgios Papanikolau (PPE).

The European Youth Forum welcomed the initiative of the Intergroup as a clear sign of an enhanced cooperation with the European Parliament. "We will follow the activities of the Intergroup with close attention in order to continue empowering young people, - declared Giuseppe Porcaro, Secretary General of the European Youth Forum, present at the constitutive meeting in Strasbourg - and we wish the Intergroup and its member all the best for their work. Finally, youth issues will have an arena to be discussed in the European Parliament."

European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion - Media Guide

The Year 2010 is the the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (EY2010). Some of you have expressed your willingness to take a more active part by organising activities that are in line with the EY2010 objectives. Publicity is a very important part of this work because it is raising awareness among different target groups of the need to fight poverty and social exclusion, and of the policy changes that are needed at all levels. Thus, the YFJ calls upon all of you to promote publicly all activities that are linked to the issues of poverty and social exclusion.

For some help, you can take a look at the 2010 Media Guide prepared by European Anti-Poverty Network which is especially designed for this purpose - offering a number of hints and tips to improve how to work with the media at national and even local level. This handbook suggests some good practices on how to write a press release, or how you approach the media (formal invitations, channels used, style of press conference, etc), but it also includes more specific information relating to the European Year 2010.

More info: http://www.youthforum.org/sites/youthforum.org/files/yfj_public/courier/2010feb/Media_guide.pdf [11]

Council of Members

The European Youth Forum is organising a Council of members meeting (COMEM) on the 23rd and 24th of April in Brussels. This is the last COMEM before the General Assembly in November this year. This means that this meeting is quite important when it comes to the work which will be done on policy papers. In 2009 the Bureau was just started to work, which means they need to set-up the development process of the policy papers they want to see presented at the end of their mandate. This year we will see the results of the process. The COMEM will also facilitate some interest groups for the member organisations. If a member organisation has a topic it wants to discuss, it is possible to apply for a interest group at the COMEM. Next to that there will be the usual speeches and social events. If you are interested in representing DBYN at this meeting, you can send an email to rein.meus@donboscoyouth.net [4].

CALLS & PUBLIC INFORMATION

Working on Work - by SALTO Inclusion

A booklet on how to understand youth unemployment and use Youth in Action projects as tools to support the access of young people with fewer opportunities into the labour market. The rate of youth unemployment is mostly higher than the adult unemployment rate in Europe and tends to vary more in response to variations in economic conditions, increasing more in recessions and recovering more quickly during booms. Unemployment is a complex, social phenomenon and efforts towards combating it require a well-planned strategic approach, combining integrated policy measures with effective practices. There exist many inspiring youth employment practices in different European countries, and together with some theoretical elaborations on the issue, this publication takes a look at these.

More info: http://www.salto-youth.net/WorkingOnWork/ [12]

YouthPass for All - a companion to the YouthPass guide

Youthpass offers young people, youth workers and youth leaders an exciting new way to recognise, understand, document and demonstrate learning that takes place within Youth in Action activities. Early experience with this tool has shown that while Youthpass offers tremendous potential, it is not always easy to implement. Some young people, and particularly those from fewer-opportunity backgrounds, may not have the experience, maturity or cognitive skills needed to recognise or understand their own learning processes. These young people need extra support in the Youthpass process...

YouthPass for All presents advice, tips and methods from youth workers who have used Youthpass "in the field". The booklet then goes on to examine how the process of looking at learning outcomes can be expanded beyond Youthpass into a more comprehensive competence-based approach to youth work.

More info: http://www.salto-youth.net/YouthPassForAll/ [13]

All Together - by IFM-SEI

IFM-SEI created and put a new tool for your inclusion work online: www.all-together.eu [14]. It was created as part of the IFM-SEI All Together inclusion strategy, which aims to increase inclusion of children and young people with fewer opportunities in our activities and structures at all levels. The website serves as a global living resource for anyone interested in being more inclusive. Everybody can contribute to it!

More info: http://www.all-together.eu [15]

Call for participants: "European Citizenship" Training course, United Kingdom, 14-20 June

The training course on European Citizenship aims to support the professional development of youth workers and youth leaders by extending their critical understanding of European Citizenship, exploring and experiencing its potential and by enabling them to recognise and integrate European Citizenship in their youth work.

More info: http://www.salto-youth.net/find-a-training/1513.html [16]

A practical guide to advocacy evaluation

Innovation Network has been involved in the advocacy evaluation field since 2005. They have performed a number of advocacy evaluations, and they want to share what they've learned. Their approach-learning-focused advocacy evaluation-results in an evaluation design that yields the type of information funders and advocates need. It helps advocates understand their progress long before a visible, public success. It generates information that advocates can use to strengthen decision making. And learning-focused advocacy evaluation challenges and advances many of the traditional conceptions of evaluation and evaluators.

More info: http://www.innonet.org/client_docs/File/advocacy/pathfinder_evaluator_web.pdf [17]

The European Drug Prevention Prize 2010 launched - apply until 31 March 2010

The European Drug Prevention Prize, launched in 2004, is awarded every two years to three drug prevention projects that fully involve young people, either in the development and implementation of activities, decision-making, project management and/or evaluation.

The Council of Europe's Pompidou Group awards this Prize every two years in order to highlight good-quality drug prevention projects that have proved success in practice in involving young people. In general, it aims to encourage the development of drug prevention work that involves young people.

The projects are evaluated by a jury of seven young people advised by experts in the field of drug prevention. The prize-winners each receive a trophy, a diploma and a monetary benefit of €5.000. More info: http://www.coe.int/t/dg3/pompidou/Initiatives/PreventionPrize/ [18]

PICTURE OF THE MONTH

The picture of the month is a picture of the international secretariat in its present set-up. Left you can see Martina, our intern, and right you can see Rein, our general secretary.