The Assembly of European Regions, in partnership with JEF, is organising a training seminar on advocacy that will offer 30 young Europeans the opportunity to enhance their knowledge of the European Institutions and the Youth Strategy, as wells as develop advocacy plans to promote their rights and priorities among local and regional authorities.

The training seminar is being organised as part of the “Y-FED: Europe is what we make of it” project. The Y-FED project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the EU with the aim of empowering youth in the European and regional political dialogues and, in turn, building an Europe that it is closer to its young citizens.

The training seminar will be held from the 4th to the 6th of March 2021 in an online learning format and will be conducted in English.

It will adopt methodologies from non-formal education to provide young citizens with the necessary competences and resources to boost their active citizenship. It includes sessions on the European Youth Strategy and its Youth Goals leading to the development of regional and local advocacy plans focused on one out of the eleven European Youth Goals.

Throughout the training seminar, young citizens will develop the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to become Youth-Ambassadors in their local and regional contexts. At the same time they will design, organise and implement advocacy actions at a local and regional level. As a result of the training, participants will:

• Strengthen advocacy skills; 
• Strengthen advocacy tools;
• Become acquainted with the European Youth Goals;
• Develop knowledge on the principles of multi-level governance and subsidiarity;
• Develop the skills to interact with decision-makers;
• Develop an advocacy plan.

The training seminar will be composed three modules that will be completed throughout 10 hours.

Welcome and Introduction   (Thursday 4th March  17:30 – 18:1o CET)

The training will be opened by AER Secretary General, Christian Spahr, who will welcome the participants and share the objectives of the Y-FED project and the training seminar.

A round of ice-breaking presentation will take place before the kick of the sessions so to know more about the participants, their motivation to attend the training and expectations.

1. Thursday 4th March, 18:00 – 20:00 CET  European Module: The European Youth Strategy 2019-2027 and the European Youth Goals

The training seminar will start with the introduction to the European Union Youth Strategy 2019-2027 and the European Youth Goals, which outline the main challenges that young people face in their daily lives and present the vision for a Europe that enables young people to realise their full potential.

2. Module on Youth and Regions: How can young people be engaged in the political development of their region? (Friday 5th March, 18:10 – 20:10 CET)

This session will focus on enhancing participants’ knowledge on the principles of multi-level governance and subsidiarity and deepening the understanding of active youth participation in the democratic and political life at regional and local level.

This session will be accompanied by some practice examples on how young people can be engaged in the political life of their regions. The module will analyse and present several examples from across Europe about how local and regional authorities have been involving their young citizens in the development, implementation and evaluation of youth policies, and other policies that are most relevant to them. These good practices will serve as the ground for the development of participants’ advocacy plans.

3. Module on advocacy: Introduction to advocacy and development of an advocacy plan (Saturday 6th March, 10:00 – 13:00;  14:00 – 17:00 CET)

The objective of this module is to build participants’ competences and provide them with the tools required to advocate for youth participation at local, regional, and European levels. Trainees will work in groups of four and each group will jointly develop an advocacy strategy to advocate for one of the previously presented European Youth Goals and address the action to a regional authority from the following countries: Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Malta, North Macedonia, Poland, Slovenia, and Spain.

The developed advocacy strategy will serve the participants as a basis for the implementation of local and regional actions, activity which will follow the training.

Closing remarks and follow-up activities (Saturday 6th March, 17:00 – 17:20)

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PROGRAMME OF THE ADVOCACY TRAINING HERE! 

Following the conclusion of the training seminar, participants will have the chance to engage with local and regional authorities across Europe by participating at the AER Spring Bureau Meeting and implementing local advocacy actions. Additionally, participants will be invited to submit the developed local advocacy plan and apply for micro-grants to actually implement the advocacy plans among their local and regional authorities with expert mentoring and under the coordination of the AER.