A delegation of IFM-SEI members from across Europe joined the 8th edition of the YO!Fest (Youth Opinion Festival), the annual political youth-led festival organised by the European Youth Forum. Joining 3000 other young people in Maastricht in February, IFM-SEI presented our new I Act project, hearing from other young people how they would respond to instances of sexual violence in their organisations and communities. We also contributed to an International House activity with other organisations such as Erasmus Student Network and the World Organisation of the Scout Movement, where young people got to explore the key themes of the event, such as participation and peace, and share their ideas with decision-makers.We can't wait until next year's festival!

The 'I Act' focus group came together in Vilnius, Lithuania, to explore the topic of power-based violence and sexual violence in relation to the new I Act project on the prevention of sexual violence. The five members of the focus group came together to receive comprehensive training from Maria Almario, a New York based trainer on the topic. The focus group also developed a detailed work plan for delivering the project throughout 2017, including planning the upcoming Training of Trainers seminar on the prevention of sexual violence taking place in May in the UK and putting into action the creation of an online platform, which will offer our organisations and members lots of creative tools and materials on the topic. The focus group meeting was supported by the European Youth Foundation. You can find out more about the project here and look at the existing campaign materials here.

25 participants from IFM-SEI and the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL) Youth Network came together in a mixed ability study session to discuss how we can make our organisations more inclusive and empowering for all. In partnership with the Council of Europe, the participants discussed what inclusion means to us, power and privilege in relation to inclusion, the Council of Europe disability strategy and developing 'inclusion in action' projects. The study session had many rich outcomes, including the establishment of an IFM-SEI accessibility network, a guide about how to make non-formal methods and activities inclusive, and an online campaign about anti-capitalism and inclusion. We're excited this is only the start of our ongoing partnership between IFM-SEI and ENIL Youth!

In October 2016, the first expert meeting of the On the Move project with the theme of ‘Flight and Migration’ took place in Catalunya. It brought together one person per partner organisation to discuss the reasons for flight and migration in history and the situation refugees face today in Europe, Africa and Latin America. The group exchanged experiences of working with refugees or migrants in their organisations and draft tips for youth workers and organisations before preparing an outline for an online course on the topic in which other youth workers of the partner organisations and the wider network of IFM-SEI can participate. 

The Partnerships for Participation project ran throughout 2015 and aimed to strengthen our work on empowering young people to participate in external decision-making. We wanted to address the issue head-on given the lower and lower rates of young voter turnout in elections on all levels and because of an increased frustration of young people with institutions in times of crisis worldwide. The project sent 10 global EVS volunteers from our member organisations to others across the world to work with teenagers in their local communities. They helped to promote the active participation of children in decision-making and show that with safe and meaningful participation structures in place, teenagers can work effectively with decision-makers to have their strong opinions heard. At the end of the project, we produced a Child Participation Handbook to raise awareness of the importance of child participation and to support educators to empower children and young people to participate in decision-making.

IFM-SEI’s study session in May 2015 was held at the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg. Entitled ‘Charter for All: Putting Human Rights Education and Education for Democratic Citizenship into Action’, the seminar re-examined why we do human rights education, what competencies it gives young people and especially how we do it. Through planning and running educational activities using nonformal education methods, participants gained self-confidence as an educator, got to know a wealth of new methods to use in their local organisations and learned important tips on how to conduct and especially debrief human rights education and education for democratic citizenship activities.

If you want to know more about the results and methodology of the study session, have a look at the report.

IFM-SEI ran two parallel seminars on Peace Education at the Kurt Lӧwenstein Haus in Werftpfuhl, Germany in May 2015. One focused on War and Conflict and the other on Mediation. Participants reflected on interpersonal to international aspects of conflicts in the world and learned about mediation techniques for conflict resolutions. 45 young educators from Europe and the Middle East came together and gained skills to promote peace education, shared challenges and good practices. Following on from these seminars, we created an educational handbook to promote peace education, and the blog Stories of Conflict and Peace to give more young members of IFM-SEI the chance to share their experiences and reflections on young people and conflicts, conflict transformation and peace education.

The handbook is available in lots of different languages! Use it in English, French, Spanish, German, Hebrew or Arabic! You can also order hard copies (Spanish and English) for 3 Euros + postage from contact@ifm-sei.org.

In 2014, two training courses took place for the All Together 2.0 project which aimed to mainstream social inclusion in IFM-SEI at all levels. The first seminar took place in May in Oer-Erkenschwick, Germany with a group of 18 young educators who learned how to become more inclusive in their local organisations and how to support local inclusion projects. In October, a second seminar took place in Finland where the group analysed and explored the implementation of their projects, peer-reviewed each other’s strategies, which included helping young people to organise social action projects, working in schools to reach out to children who don’t usually attend youth group nights, and taking youth groups to meet children living in care and allowing them to have the same experience of group nights. Participants in the All Together 2.0 seminars also planned how to ensure the sustainability of their inclusion work by making educational activities on social inclusion that can be shared with everyone.

Also the second edition of Rainbow Resources was developed in the framework of this project!

All Together 2.0 was the follow-up project of IFM-SEI's All Together strategy from 2007-2010, resulting in our inclusion handbook.

IFM-SEI’s study session entitled ‘Tackling the Culture of Violence’ was held at the European Youth Centre in Budapest in November 2014. It empowered young educators to promote an environment free from violence by raising awareness of its different forms, and reflecting on a culture that deems violence acceptable, hindering children and young people’s access to Human Rights. Discussion focused on bullying, gender-based violence and corporal punishment; three forms of violence that particularly affect children and young people. Participants produced guidelines to identify and tackle these types of violence, how to prevent it before it happens and developed nonformal educational workshops to run with children, young people and other educators to raise awareness of violence and support them in combatting it.

Read the report of the study session, full of tips on how to tackle violence and educational activities.

The global Co-operAction project in 2013 aimed to promote the co-operative model of enterprise to young people through education, exchange and practical experience of setting up co-operative enterprises in 11 local communities.

Local groups learned about co-operative values and principles, developed ethical business ideas, decided on rules, roles and responsibilities in their co-operatives and started running their small businesses. As a result of the project, we delevoped the CooperACTION handbook in several languages with information, games and educational activities around cooperation and cooperatives. You will also find lots of inspiring examples of the youth cooperatives set up by our groups!

With this global project we raised awareness on youth poverty and the struggle for decent work by producing educational tools and a thought-provoking and inspiring documentary film. 24 young volunteers from all over the world have been trained in peer education and documentary-making to facilitate local video projects. The local volunteers interviewed their peers on their fears and hopes regarding their working life, talk to experts, employers and decision-makers and developed ideas to fight youth poverty and exploitation.

The documentary is also available with subtitles in German, French, and Spanish. We also developed an impressive web documentary, where you can browse through different interviews, background information and videos.