"Should I stay or should I go?" New verve for participation opportunities for young people in rural areas

Since the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic even young people themselve have observed that there is increasing disorientation and inactivity within the scope of youth participation opportunities, be it at the local level, but also in engagement with overarching political, societal and social issues. New momentum for active youth participation is therefore imperative. Time and again, young people complain that engagement is clearly waning and hardly anyone is leaving his/her "comfort zone." The impact of the pandemic has clearly reinforced this. Therefore, concrete aspects and perceived needs in the context of building the envisioned Small-scale Partnership are, on the one hand, to raise awareness of local participation and activities and to advance capacity building of partner organizations and involved young people in rural areas. In addition, there is a need to strengthen networking and harness synergies through the cooperation of different partners on the ground, as well as to strengthen the reconstruction of youth participation opportunities after the Covid 19 pandemic. Cross-national cooperation in particular needs to be strengthened.

The goals of building a small-scale partnership are to create awareness and understanding of the different possibilities of youth participation at the local level, to promote intercultural and intergenerational dialogue, to promote the values of freedom, tolerance and respect for human rights, and to strengthen European identity. The stronger networking of the participating organizations from Latvia, Poland, Romania and Germany aims to make an important contribution to strengthening youth structures and capacity building. Since all four participating partner organizations are located in rather rural areas in small towns up to a maximum of 20,000 inhabitants, the main aim is to strengthen youth participation at the local level. The representation of the very diverse interests of young people is visibly weakening, especially in times of the pandemic. There is an increased retreat into social media spaces as opposed to active engagement at the local level. Mutual exchange between the organizations in the partner countries can also help to identify best-practice examples in order to build sustainable cooperation structures.

The kick-off meeting in Dobele, Latvia, served to establish the basic structure of the partnership between the four partner organizations involved and to define the individual project steps, content and details on a partnership basis. The preparation of the subsequent training courses "Get involved on local level" included the development of surveys in the respective partner countries so that specific problems with regard to the lack of youth participation could be identified. The training course in Vlotho focused on activities to identify opportunities for youth participation (creating spaces for youth encounters). In the training course in Poland, the focus was on the continuation of active participation opportunities. The focus was also on promoting awareness of the connection between a shared European past, present and future. In the concluding international seminar in Vlotho, the participants focused on the topic of sustainability at local level and strengthening capacities in small youth organizations.

The main results include the active participation of young people from all four participating countries. Thematically, both the need for youth participation spaces (especially on the Romanian, Polish and Latvian side) were highlighted. Concretely, it is also about youth centers on a small-scale level. Here, the three countries mentioned differ significantly from Germany. Furthermore, the topic of the participation of young immigrants in the context of strengthening a network was emphasized. In the course of the international training seminars, the participants emphasized the strengthening of historical-political youth education and initiatives to strengthen sustainability and environmental awareness at the local level. The manifold results were published and documented on the GESW e.V. homepage, see www.gesw.de. Thematic videos, wallpapers and blogs on the above topics present concrete results of international youth cooperation. The most important result is the increased involvement of young people and strengthening of human resource capacities in partner organizations. This is now giving rise to further youth projects through Erasmus+.