Erasmus+ Youth Community-Led Academy
▶Summary
In January 2021 Life Zone (EE) and Synergy Bulgaria (BG) NGOs created an online community ‘Erasmus+ Youth Academy’ (youth.academy) focused on Erasmus+ Youth sector & ESC Programme. This community is designed for quality networking and experience sharing between NGO leaders, project managers, youth workers and youth leaders. At the moment it hosts over 2000 community members with a high engagement rate. It offers an international dimension and mainly addresses 2 problems: lack of education/training & mentoring for new/young NGOs which can aid their faster integration into E+ world and lack of quality networking (especially as a result of COVID lockdown, the time our community was launched) which is crucial for high-quality activities. To address these issues, we launched an online academy, a FB-community, internal mentoring support and a series of networking formats/events. Run voluntarily for 1 year we finally applied for a KA2 Small-scale grant and got the community funded.
▶Objectives
24 months of community-led academy multimedia content creation, publication and peer-to-peer communication. 4 times before deadlines online project writing challenges in order to help young people and youth organisations' teams to develop youth projects, apply within the Erasmus+ Youth programme and make a change in the world! At least 200 (50 at each deadline) participants of the challenges. 40 Teams private mentorship. According to 900 members' responses (now - over 2000, link is available upon request), we identified the needs & shaped them into the objectives of this project: • Equip community members with necessary tools, knowledge and skills for effective Erasmus+ Youth and ESC project management; • Create ideas for further cooperation and develop partnerships between organizations involved; • Involve young people and youth work professionals with fewer opportunities in international mobility projects; • Contribute to the quality improvement and acknowledgement of youth work and non-formal education in program and partner countries; • Develop non-formal education standards and methods in the participating organizations; • Be in the latest trends of the digitalisation and green practices, use less travel and do more online.
▶Activities
Activities: 1. Kick-Off Meeting 2. Ongoing project work x 24 months 3. E-learning programmes production with formats of challenges with mentorship, gamification on the partnership-building activities with the other members of the community, multimedia content to support the learning, coworking and networking on the partnership projects. 4. Final Online Conference to promote the results of the project and look for more supporters to continue with sustainable community development 5. Final Evaluation Meeting.
▶Impact
The project foresaw the following activities, during which we achieved the results: 1. Kick-Off Meeting and Community Management Training for the Team 2. Educational activities: Project Writing Challenges design, teams mentoring & newcomers' support Our educational activities included: - 12 Educational Guides created for community members: https://www.facebook.com/groups/erasmusplusacademy/learning_content. - Educational YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ErasmusYouthAcademy, 334 subscribers. - Erasmus+ Online Academy with 4 online courses for newcomers & more experienced organizations: https://youth.academy/onlineacademy. - 3 Padlet open-access Libraries: https://padlet.com/erasmusyouthacademy. - Mentoring days with teams, this was invested as a part of 4 Project Writing Challenges (2 for KA1 projects, 1 - Solidarity Projects, 1 - KA2 projects). - Ongoing support in FB community. - 'Expert Talks' fb-lives. 3. Results Dissemination Online Conference. 4. Final Team Online Evaluation Meeting.