Youth Capital to Youth Capital - Inspiring, Sharing, Learning

The yearly award of European Youth Capital (EYC) provides title holders with an opportunity to not only present their existing initiatives targeted at youth but also an outstanding and utmost crucial platform to improve their programmes and policies for and by young people on various levels. European Youth Capital is a title granted by the European Youth Forum and it encourages the implementation of innovative projects related to the active participation of young people in society. It also attempts to present a role model for the further development of youth policies in other European municipalities. The yearly award of European Youth Capital provides title holders with an opportunity not only to present their existing initiatives targeted at youth but also to improve their youth programs and Youth Policies. "Youth Capital to Youth Capital: Inspiring, Sharing and Learning" is a project developed within the framework of the European Youth Capitals and aims to contribute to improve the quality of youth work in Europe by supporting the work of the European Capital Youth at the local Level. For 18 months, organizations from Portugal (DNA Cascais and Fundação Bracara Augusta), Slovenia (MKC Maribor), Romania (Pont Group) and Greece (UNESCO Youth Center) developed a set of activities that facilitate the sharing and exchanging of best practices between Youth Capitals and enable future European Youth Capital candidates to access best practices in the field of youth work. The project involved youth workers, leaders of youth NGOs, practitioners working on youth-related programmes within the municipalities as well as local authority representatives directly involved in the implementation of EYC related programmes as well as the youth agenda and activities of cities. During the project, three learning and training activities were developed, in order to achieve the proposed objectives. In the first moment, the Seminar "Framing and implementing youth policies at the local level", youth leaders, youth workers and local authorities had the opportunity to share experiences and debate about local youth policies and how to improve the quality of youth work at local level. Some of the practices, experiences and reflexions presented during the Seminar can be consulted in the Handbook developed in the framework of the project "Youth Capital to Youth Capital: Inspiring, Sharing, Learning". The training course "Youth as an engine for local youth development: youth development: development and evaluating local youth actions" was the moment framed in the project Youth Capital to Youth Capital, where youth leaders and youth workers had the opportunity to explore mechanisms to assess the impact of youth work at local level and explore solutions related to how to design and develop strategies and an action plan that contribute to local development and where the youngsters are the engine of that development. During the Final Conference, under the topic “Youth work at local level: Inspiring, sharing and learning”, youth workers and policy makers from Braga, Cascais, Maribor, Thessaloniki and Cluj had the opportunity to exchange experiences on the mapping process and discuss the outcomes of the project. During the project, an Handbook was developed that, based on the experiences and practices experienced by each of the cities, seeks to contribute to the knowledge transfer among the European Youth Capitals supporting future titular cities in improving the quality of their youth programs and sharing practices developed by some of the previous European Youth Capital and that inspire other cities that intends to apply for EYC in the future. During the project, as a way of guaranteeing the sustainability of the project and the European Youth Capital title, the cooperation between cities that have received the title of European Youth Capital and that share the same values related to the importance in the youth work sector, the different organisations agreed to create a more solid and efective Network of European Youth Capitals. The project had an impact on more than 5000 people, contributing to a greater impact on young people's awareness of the European dimension and their role and support in local youth policies, which will lead to a more conscious society of young people and the results of their European citizenship.