<< Background >>The European Union as we know today is the result of seventy years of development and treaties that started in 1951 with the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community. Since then other seven major treaties were signed. The Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union, where the basis for EU action in the youth field is established, has over 300 pages, but is its language and the content accessible to all? Although the treaties are translated into all the languages of the 27 members states of the EU, that does not ensure everyone understands the text. They are all written in “legalese”. So how do we ensure that the importance of the European Union is recognized by young people if its texts are far from their reality?READY builds on the positive results of highly successful projects coordinated by the YES Forum: “YourEP” (https://bit.ly/336FS6t), “Europe through young Eyes: Exchange, Explore, Exhibit (Europe3E)” (https://bit.ly/3thzBiO – Nominated for the prize “Salto Participation and Information Award”), and “Our life. Our voice” (https://bit.ly/2O5nK4k). These projects pursued the same general objectives: promoting Active Citizenship, EU and political awareness, and Social Inclusion. All these projects have shown that disadvantaged youngsters are interested in EU and national politics as well as exercising their citizenship when provided with the right opportunities.Although with these projects we would bring young people closer to understanding the EU, in them, we witnessed that the fact that EU treaties are still very far from the daily lives of young people, although the basis of the functioning of the EU comes from them. We aim to tackle this disconnection. That is why with READY we want to raise EU awareness in young people by making relevant provisions from EU treaties understandable to them. We want to raise literacy competencies in young people, so they can better understand the meaning of these treaties and the importance that they have over their lives. The partners have observed that there is an urgent need of making documents accessible to the target group. Treaties, resolutions, conventions, and academic papers that are hard to understand face resistance from the people to whom they address. That is why since 2020 the YES Forum has started a movement of providing easy-to-understand documents to our target group: the young people.<< Objectives >>READY aims at raising literacy competencies in young people, who are furthest away from political awareness. This will be achieved by combining a personal approach to the EU through an exploration of the EU in the young person’s everyday lives and through research conducted by the young people themselves on EU treaties.We will set up groups of young people in each participating country to discuss the meaning of the EU from their own experience. Through this guided and support process of discovering the EU through EU treaties, young people will develop their autonomy to further understand the EU.As a result of the project READY, young people will improve self-confidence, and autonomy to search and understand information, so as to better understand the meaning of EU treaties and the importance that they have over their lives. The mains and objectives are:- To ensure that the language of the relevant provisions to young people present on European Union treaties and policies are accessible to them.- To bring young people closer to understand what the European Union is.- To trigger the interest of young people so they appropriate the text of EU treaties.- To promote knowledge of the real impact of the European Union in the daily life of EU citizens.- To foster a better quality youth work using innovative and creative approaches- To improve the skills and competencies of youth workers and future youth workers.<< Implementation >>Young people with fewer opportunities will be directly involved as participants of all the activities proposed by the project READY:- Transnational Project Meeting 1, in Stuttgart, DE (12/2021): 1 youngster per partner (except Framework) will take part to help further fine-tuning the project so that it best meets the needs of youngsters with fewer opportunities.- Transnational Project Meeting 2, in Zagreb (06/2022): 1 youngster per partner will again take part in the discussions to include the young participants in all steps of decision-making. - Local activities of Phase 1 “EU ready to read”, incl. 1st Transnational Training “I read, I understand” in Strasbourg (10/2022): a group of young participants from each partner will take part in local meetings before and after the 1st Transnational Training in Strasbourg. There, they will receive training on Europe, EU politics, the role of treaties and policies, and techniques to design an effective infographic. The young people will be responsible to decide which of the relevant provisions from EU treaties and policies translated into easy-to-understand language will be transformed into visual content with the use of infographics. Besides expanding their competencies by trying out new methods during the training activities, youth workers will be in charge of supporting the young participants in local meetings to carry out the research activities.- Transnational Project Meeting 3, in Pau (01/2023): 1 youngster per partner will again take part in the discussions to include the young participants in all steps of decision-making. The youth workers will support the participants in voicing their opinions and presenting their group’s first infographics.- Local activities of Phase 2 “EU ready to see”, incl. 2nd Transnational Training “I understand, I use” in Lucca (05/2023): after new preparatory local activities, all young participants will gather to receive further training activities on EU citizenship and how to communicate about the EU. They will provide input for the recommendations on what are the risks of having EU language so distant from the reality of the young people. They will be accompanied by youth workers, who will themselves learn how to communicate about the EU in a language easy-to-understand and free of jargon, thereby broadening their scope of professional skills for participatory youth work.- Transnational Project Meeting 4, in Lucca (09/2021): 1 youngster per partner will take part with a youth worker to reflect on the project, give feedback and discuss dissemination of project results.<< Results >>According to the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth identified three core challenges that need to be addressed by youth workers while supporting young people in their path to adulthood: qualification, independence, and self-positioning. The READY project aims to tackle all these three challenges throughout these three phases: 1. Qualification: Phase 1 “EU ready to read”: throughout this phase, young people will be in touch with the most relevant provisions of the EU and that concern them directly. Because treaties and policies tend to be seen as hard to understand and far from the daily lives of the young people, they are often neglected as a topic that also needs to be addressed to young people. Through local activities and participation at the TPMs, they will be able to better understand the functioning of the EU.2. Independence: Phase 2 “EU ready to see”: during the Training C1 “I read, I understand”, young people will have the independence to choose which of the relevant provisions from the first result “EU ready to read” they find more important and they feel more connected to. During the local activities of Phase 2, the young people will have the autonomy to visually represent the chosen relevant provisions as they feel that fits better. 3. Self-positioning: having the knowledge (Phase 1) and the confidence to apply it independently (Phase 2), young people will be able to provide key messages addressing policymakers on their needs for an easier to understand language from the EU. These key messages will be reflected at the Project result #3 “EU ready to discuss”.Moreover, the project READY is aligned with the objectives and priorities of the European Youth Work Agenda. The basis of EU youth policies rises from EU treaties. With READY we aim at bringing back the connection between youth work and EU treaties, by making their relevant provisions accessible to all. We will also support the further development of the quality of youth work: by making the reach and limits of EU policies to youth in a language that is accessible to them, young people will have an increased sense of citizenship, which allows them to claim the rights that are ensured to them in the paper.By organizing multiplier events and final conferences in Brussels, which will include young people, we will enhance the promotion and recognition of youth work by policymakers.READY can be seen as a direct contribution to the Bonn process. As the Bonn Process represents the common effort to put the European Youth Work Agenda into action and make it become real, we aim at making it accessible and visible to young people. In READY we will work with both target groups – young people and youth workers – to boost youth work.