Projects

Advocacy for Gender Equality and Active Citizenship

One of our latest Erasmus+ projects that finished in 2021 is Advocacy for Gender Equality and Active Citizenship (AGE&AC). It's a Capacity Building in the field of Youth project that ran for 22 months - from December 2019 to September 2021.

Within the AGE&AC project we also created our own Handbook on Gender Equality and Empowerment of Young Girls - a report including a history review on the topic of gender and a detailed analisys on different gender policies in each country. Furthermore, the consortiom developed a Training of Trainers Curriculum for Gender Equality and Active Citizenship as a tool for youth workers to use in their session with youngsters on the topic. Besides the know-how transfer between the partners, we implemented different Local Action Plans in each country, varying from online and offline trainings, to meetings and school visits, to campaigns and street actions.

We delivered a blended Training for Youth Workers in Cyprus in July 2021 where we had participants from Kyrgyzstan, Cyprus and Bulgaria meeting face-to-face and those from the United Kingdom worked with the team online. The youth workers in this mobility acquired knowledge and skills on training youngsters on topics such as Benevolent Sexism, Gender Stereotypes, and Gender-based violence. Moreover, we implemented a Youth Exchange in Kyrgyzstan in August 2021 for a total of 60 participants who learned about the gender inequalities in our modern-day society. At the end of the 10-day adventure on the Issyk-kul shore the young people left with a deeper understanding on why stereotypes exist and why it is important to empower women and girls. 

Promoting gender equality is EU‘s core activity: equality between women and men is a fundamental EU value, an EU objective and a driver for economic growth. Where there is an imbalance of equality, as in cases of underempowered young women, we have joined efforts to adress the shortfall. The project addressed gender inequality through youth work as we believe youth work needs to be considered the non-formal education provider, supporting a "learning to participate" attitude of young citizens to contribute to their understanding of the democratic system, promote their critical thinking and make available the necessary tools to get engaged in decision and policy making.

The following 4 partners cooperated together to develop a model of best practices: IOA, Bulgaria; Mary Seacole Housing Association, United Kingdom; Instituto Erevnon Promitheas, Cyprus; and Public Association Youth Movement "I love Kyrgyztan", Kyrgyztan. Every partner contributed to the development and implementation of the AGE & AC project with their own strenghts: training, research, management, facilities, etc. 

Project Grant agreement number: 608695/2019. The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.