EChange.02 – Change through Exchange

The aims for the project are:

• To facilitate and empower youth participants to contribute to positively bring about peace, security, and strengthened resilience of societies in Africa and Europe enabled by participatory and responsible governance.
• To empower Participating Institutions to contribute to the above aim through youth work.
• To enable sustainable connections and joint action among youth from Africa and Europe.
• To strengthen the capacities of Participating Organisations, their cooperation within the consortium and their connections with other youth organisations and agents for future joint activities.

The activities for youth participants include:

1. Two exchange visits (20 days each) – one exchange visit to Kenya and one exchange visit to Germany.

Indicative activities during the exchange visits include (to be specified in the course of the project and with contributions by participants):

• Joint sessions/workshops with the whole group to exchange about the context of participation of young people in the participating countries and opportunities for young people to contribute to strengthening resilience, peace, security and governance in their societies.
  • Participants make inputs (presentations/workshops) about history, culture, society, youth participation, resilience, peace, security and governance of their countries and about their own experiences with social and political engagement.
  • Participating Organisations and external speakers share insights and lead discussions on issues of youth participation, resilience, peace, security and governance.
  • Training part 1 (Kenya) and 2 (Germany) on project development and fundraising.
  • Feedback sessions on the exchange visits. Participants discuss how to integrate their ideas in the project outputs and dissemination activities.
  • Visits to different institutions for gaining knowledge about social and political structures, governance, systems, and institutions.
  • Participants form working groups and develop strategies for follow-up projects; they develop strategies for future action on the national and cross-national level, concrete steps are decided, and tasks are assigned.

• A volunteering project is conducted by the whole group in each of the two host countries. The project will contribute to both or one of the two priority areas: ‘Investing in people’, ‘Strengthening resilience, peace, security and governance’.

This joint project will contribute to the practical relevance of the project and to the team building of the group. The type of project will be decided on based on the interest of the youth participants during the preparation meetings.

• Workshop organised by Partner Organisations: Through a 1-day workshop, Partner Organisations will bring in their expertise and present their work with young people to an audience of organisations working with issues related to the priority areas of the project. The Partner Organisations will jointly organise the workshop, youth participants will be invited to attend.

2. Two preparatory meetings (1 day each) before each exchange visit will be conducted in each participating country by the Partner Organisation with the youth participants. The meetings will introduce participants to the project, gather their expectations and input for the outputs and for the exchange visits, determine which input each participant will give throughout the project based on their prior experience, develop a schedule for participants’ input, form working groups for the development of follow-up projects and plan logistical issues of the exchange visit. The second preparatory meeting will further collect participants’ feedback on the first exchange visit.