"Politics and Youth Culture" local initiatives start-up

The portuguese group responsible for the participation in "Politics and Youth Culture" project (Marisa, Marta, Tiago & friends) organized a start-up dinner to gather the first participants and to prepare their first local initiatives concerning this project.
These first events will consist of visits to places where youngsters will have a first contact with Europe reallity. The aim of this group is to put youngsters in the less expected scenarios to take contact with the E.U. reallity. The first contacts have been made and we will continue searching youngsters with less opportunities or less access to information and will bring to them something about Europe so they can be aware of Europe matters in a funny and interesting way.
The first visits are being arranged, and they will take part in the next weeks. The organizers are making weekly meetings in order to ensure that the local initiatives will be successfull. We are also trying to call as much volunteers/participants as possible so we can reach as much youngsters as we can to spraid the "Politics and Youth Culture" project
Stay tunned, we will report you soon from Portugal. . .

Ágora Bracarense Twin Associations

In order to expand and invigorate our network of contacts, Ágora Bracarense decided to embrace the initiative: to create a twin association network. With this policy, we intend to work with associations who share our goals and our mission. This idea came after a request for cooperation from the "Youth Cabinet", a Dutch association, which will become our first twin association. In the future, we aim to have twin associations in most European countries.
We will invite some organizations with which we have contacted in the international projects we have taken part. We believe that this is a great way to improve and internationalize our work and strengthen bonds of union with other associations and countries.

Ágora Bracarense in Europe

Ágora Bracarense completed recently its 11th participation ininternational Projects. Since February, 2007, we've been pretent in several countries:

- Italy (3 times)

- England (3 times)

- Poland (once)

- Czech Republic (once)

- Spain (once)

- Lithuania (once)

- Romania (once)

Next destination will be Holland. See in the photo where have we been... Congratulations Ágora Bracarense.

Yes Project Final Meeting - 18 January 2008

On January 18, the “Polo Multimediale La nave di Harlock” will host the concluding conference of the EU project YES-Young European Stage Network.

Taking advantage of the opportunity offered by the conclusion of the works around the YES project, the event will represent a perfect occasion to stimulate reflections and debates concerning youth needs and the policies (national, local and European) which aim at satisfying such needs, but also concerning the role of youngsters in Europe.

The YES project, coordinated by Mondo-Palcogiovani from Brescia, is financed with the support of the European Youth Programme (Action 5) of the European Commission and with the contribution from the Municipality of Brescia. The project involves organizations (both public and no-profit), from six EU countries (Italy, Slovenia, Poland, Germania, Spain e Portugal) which will take part to the event. The YES project aims at favouring dialogue and debate among the actors (institutions, associations etc.) working with and for young people, through the consolidation and promotion of a network aimed at promoting youth projects in the framework of EU opportunities as well as local initiatives.

Youngsters represent in today’s Europe not only a resource but also the future protagonist of the European project. At the same time, for its youngsters, Europe represents a great opportunity for personal and career development. However, as of today, such resource seem to be very little valorized still and Europe (with its institutions, policies and programmes) still too distant from the daily life of many European youngsters. In spite of the several European initiatives (programmes such as Youth in Action, but also Erasmus and Leonardo), as well as the national and local ones (i.e. creation of specific policies and activities for youngsters etc.); discrepancies persists and they should find a solution in a tighter collaboration between different political level and also between institutional actors, youth actors and the youngsters themselves.

In this context, the final conference of the YES project intends to, not only disseminating information concerning the project and the YES network as tools at the service of European youngsters to help them take full advantage of the opportunities available to them, but also favour a larger debate concerning the key role youngsters play in the evolution of the European Project.

New International Project - IIE Training

IEE Intelligent Energy for Europe – Youth Training Project

Summary of the project:
The main aim of the project will be to train and educate youngsters (aged between 15-18 years old) in the participating countries (one class of around 20-25 youngsters for each country) on themes concerning energy savings and renewable energies. This training and education activities will use formal and informal education means to teach youngster about energy problems of the planet and more practically of their country, region and even home. They will also aim at providing youngsters with, and stimulating them to find themselves solutions which they could implement to solve such problems. Moreover, the teaching methodology will fully and actively involve the youngsters directly, since they will become also teachers during the exchanges (i.e. the hosting classes will teach the foreign classes concerning the renewable energy source and technologies used in their local areas). The project will favour a behavioural change in the youngsters involved but also on other youngsters by spreading the teaching methodologies used during the project. Moreover, the project will provide the participating youngsters with specific knowledge and skills which will significantly increase their job opportunities and career prospects.
The activities of the project will include:
-training on a local scale (i.e. youngsters in their home towns and local school managers and policy makers)
-e-learning activities (training youngsters on the utilisation of e-learning tools, putting youngsters from different countries in touch among each other and carrying out common activities by using ICTs –i.e. information technologies such as pcs and internet)
- youth exchanges (with youngsters travelling to the countries involved in the project to meet and implement activities together).

New section, for international projects

It is now possible to find a new section, on Ágora Bracarense's blog, specially dedicated to international projects.

There you can find information concerning the proposals to participate on new projects developed by our partners.

Clock on the left bar, on: www.agorabracarense-internationalprojects.blogspot.com

The information is both in portuguese and english.

To reply the offers and know more about the projects contact us to: agorabracarense@gmail.com

Yes Project - September Newsletter