“Youth Citizenship Activators” is a 10-day Mobility of Youth workers-Training course, organized by Omladinska Kulturna Organizacija from 24th of November to 3rd of December 2016 in Belgrade, Serbia that brings together 35 youth workers, young leaders, trainers and young professionals from Serbia, Macedonia, Turkey, Poland, Greece, Portugal, Albania, Czech Republic, Italy and Romania. Being active citizen in social, political and economic life has many advantages and almost always brings positive impact and benefits on people lives. It brings experience, knowledge, skills, contacts, education, mobility and job opportunities and friendships that otherwise we would hardly get in the comfort of our homes. Active participation widens people horizons, enriches lives, increases self-confidence and esteem, opens new doors for personal and professional development and often leads to job offers or increased chances for employment. But, if the benefits are so high, then why youth doesn’t take active participation in societies and practice their citizens’ rights to be active in the political, economic and social processes in their countries and EU? Why European youth show little or no interest and motivation to be engaged in democratic life, why are they losing community ties and there are declined levels of trust in democratic institutions? The answers on these questions are not easy to get, but we’ve asked these crucial questions to ourselves and our partners and found out that youth workers and youth organisations can greatly help in addressing these issues and inspire and enable active youth participation in democratic life by providing training, education, coaching and information through their work and activities. Therefore, project supports the personal and professional development of youth workers and young leaders by training, equipping with competences and empowering them to work on citizenship education, especially in the context of active citizenship and European citizenship. In the same time, the project creates a new generation of Youth Citizenship Activators (educators) who will be able to encourage active youth participation in socio-political democratic life on local, national and European level in order to strengthen youth voice and role in Europe by using different tools for empowerment.Through successful realization of project and fulfilling its aims and objectives, the project on the long run can significantly help to raise the quality of (European) citizenship education and improve active participation of young people, especially those with fewer opportunities in participating countries and European democratic life.Project methodology is based on non-formal, experiential and informal learning methods and intercultural learning that will aim to foster the personal, social and professional development of all participants though it’s inclusive approach to everyone and adaptation according to their needs and expectations.

Launched in November 2017, DIVE brought JEF Europe, ESN International and AEGEE Europe, three European youth networks, along with six of their local and national members. The project was based on the observation that their activities, all European by nature (support to student mobility, European integration, European active citizenship), are not allowing full participation of young people as volunteers due to several perceived or real barriers. The project aimed at identifying these barriers and collectively reflecting on how to take them down. The final goal was to make member orgnisations of JEF, ESN and AEGEE more diverse and ultimately to make European volunteering more accessible and inclusive. The organisations were supported in this journey by YES Forum, a platform of organisations working with and for young people with fewer opportunities. The organisations together worked on the topic of diversity in European volunteering.After four Transnational Partners Meetings (in Lyon, Dubrovnik, Cagliari, and Brussels) and three trainings (in Sofia, Athens, and Malmö), the project has now finished and the organisations have succeeded in achieving the planned aim and objectives. DIVE undoubtedly allowed to raise awareness about the topics of inclusion and diversity in the partner organisations, internally and among their members. We planted a seed: the topic was introduced in the networks. DIVE triggered the discussion within our associations. It truly was an eye-opener project, as people were not always aware that inclusion was a problem in our organisations. Moreover, we succeeded to create three tangible outputs: - The Organisational Assessment Tool (OAT): It represents the first step to take on your path towards inclusion. This tool aims mainly at raising awareness of the topic. Indeed it triggers reflection by asking a set of questions intended to identify potential shortcomings in terms of inclusiveness.- The Training Session Outlines (TSO’s): a series of outlines for youth workers to implement workshops related to social inclusion in their local sections. - The Guide of Best Practices: It is a waste of time to reinvent the wheel, and although there is room for improvement in our organizations, we already have some good practices. Therefore, the partners exchanged and collected good ideas and practices that are already running in our organisations. It gave them the opportunity to share their experiences and to learn from each other. Nevertheless, we realised that all the topics were not covered. Therefore, we brainstormed together to also create new best practices. They cover the different barriers that were identified and offer easy steps to implement practices aimed at diversifying our membership. The deliverables were developed thanks to the exchange of ideas and experiences among members of youth organisations with the help of experienced trainers and the knowledge of the YES Forum. The developed tools are available on our websites to everyone. They were designed to be user-friendly, allowing anyone interested in the topics of Diversity and Inclusion to know more about it and to have the tools to organise an activity on it. DIVE allowed the partner organisations to be more aware of the issues of inclusion and diversity, and although the process has already started, in the longer-term.