What?

European Youth Together – Road to the Future is a project that empowers young people to participate in European democracy leading up to the 2019 European Parliament elections and beyond. European-scale and local events, online and offline campaigns, and the development of new training and debate materials and an interactive online platform will engage young people from all around Europe in civic action and give them a chance to express their visions for the future of Europe. The project summary can be found here.

Who?

Road to the Future is led by the Young European Federalists (JEF) (FR),  and AER is a key partner. As AER’s network of youth leaders, the Youth Regional Network (YRN) is actively involved in the project. YRN members will attend trainings and take part in events at local and European levels while establishing connections with other European youth organisations. Due to our extensive experience in European projects, AER is in charge of evaluation and monitoring for the project. Among other tasks, AER will keep track of the project’s progress, contract an external evaluator and coordinate the activity of the Advisory Board, a body that will provide feedback and recommendations on the quality of the project’s primary activities and outputs.

AER is joined in the Consortium by:

• European Educational Exchanges – Youth for Understanding AISBL (EEE-YFU) (BE)
• DYPALL Network: Associação para o Desenvolvimento da Participa (PT)
• Union of European Federalists ASBL (BE)
• Association Center for Intercultural Dialogue – Kumanovo (FYROM)
• Animafac (FR)

in addition to the national sections and affiliates of JEF in:

• Spain
• Slovenia
• Poland – Europe4Youth
• Malta
• FYR Macedonia
• Italy
• Greece – Balkans Beyond Borders
• Germany
• Finland
• France
• Denmark
• Bulgaria
• Belgium
• Austria 

How?

In the first phase of the project, the project team and a group of experts will develop tools and train multipliers to carry out debates across Europe in the run-up to the European Parliament elections in May 2019. Complementing these smaller events will be a multi-country bus tour of young activists and a large-scale youth event gathering approximately 2000 young people in Paris, France. An interactive online platform will gather the views of young Europeans. These views will be presented in a manifest, which will be shared with hundreds of European Parliament candidates.

In the second phase, lessons learned from the first phase will be used to sustain the momentum gained in youth political engagement. A second training of trainers will prepare young people to organise local events to keep the dialogue about European issues alive among their peers. A final conference will gather the conclusions of the project and present its results.

As the consortium is primarily composed of youth organisations, young people are not only the targets of the project, but also its drivers.

Why?

Voters in the 2019 European Parliamentary elections will weigh in on issues of great importance for their future. However, young people often do not have the knowledge and opportunity necessary for full participation in the European political process. As such, young voter turnout in European elections has been on the decline. Road to the Future aims to address the pressing need for informed and engaged European youths, while enhancing and coordinating the efforts of youth organisations across the continent.

When?

Road to the Future will run for over a year, from October 2018 through February 2020.

  This project has received funding from the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme under Key Action 3: European Youth Together, Agreement no. 2018 – 2557/001 – 001.