Youth Volunteers promote voluntarism, civil activism, youth and humanitarian work in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Georgian NGO "Prani" aimed to work on integration and civic education of youth of minorities and different vulnerable groups, conduct researches on youth topics, provide non-formal education. Work with students in high schools and organize workshops, educational games, theatrical activities in order to promote cultural heritage, arts, human rights. Bulgarian "Vasil Levski" - concentrated in activities in the field of education, youth projects, cultural heritage, contemporary arts, etc. One of the aims and principles of ESN Minho (Portugal) is to create values of volunteering and active citizenship, and also to promote European themes for debate and general issues. NGO "Youth of Yuvileine" (Ukraine) conducts trainings about social work by non-formal education and activities, invites young people to volunteer. Armenian “World of the light Child and Youth Center” involves children and youth into active social life and organizes various events, trainings aimed at increasing the level of their general development and social-cultural education. Sistema un G Latvija's objectives are: European awareness, democracy, active participation, tolerance, inclusion, information, informal education, international experience, cultural interaction and exchange of experiences. CIC (Russia) provides ethnic minorities in Russia with informational, technical and organizational support and helps ethnic minority associations to protect their rights. International Sustainable Development Association from Turkey promotes humanitarian development at local, national and international levels. They motivate young people to become involved and raise awareness about current values like equal opportunities, social inclusion and cultural diversity. Selecting the partner organisations we also considered main fields of their work: Hellenic Youth Participation stands for intercultural dialogue, non-formal education, mutual understanding and solidarity. We would like their representatives to share the tools and methods of non-formal education they use in their work with other participants. We hope that the representatives of these second and third groups of countries will bring the positive experience of their organisations in our project. Three groups of countries will be involved - the ones that recently faced mass actions/riots - Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine - the countries with underdeveloped civil society, hard economic conditions, employment issues and high level of corruption the ones with better developed civil society, - Albania, Estonia, Latvia and the ones with the best developed democracy and levels of life in Europe - The Netherlands and Portugal.
To develop new approaches for the better inclusion of youth in social activism and new joint projects ideas for the support of democracy in European countries. To share the tools and methods of non-formal education that the participants and their respective NGOs could use in their future work with youth for the democratic changes in their countries.
To use international experience to come to the common understanding of basic European values with the help of different non-formal education tools like group work, discussion, role play, team-building, living library, forum theatre, group drawings etc.