2.2 People-To-People Networking

The project aims at building capacity and establishing two Youth Coordination Clubs in the cross-border region as well as developing opportunities of both clubs to provide services, establish contacts and partnerships, coordinating networks.

The main project activities are:

1. Conducting trainings of youth leaders with 68 participants;
2. Practical training for development of educational mobility and exchange projects - one in Bulgaria and one in Serbia;
3. Creating eight youth clubs with the motto "I want, I know, I can" – four in Bulgaria and four in Serbia;
4. Conducting a Youth forum for presenting the projects for educational mobility and exchange – one in Bulgaria and one in Serbia;
5. Planning, preparation and conducting public events in the CB region;
6. Collecting and promoting customs, traditions, rituals, presented in an attractive way in schools;
7. Holding two youth festivals;
8. Conducting campaigns to promote youth activity;
9. Creating a website and e-newsletter.

The expected results are:

1. Established two Youth Coordinating Clubs - one in Bulgaria and one in Serbia;
2. Forty leaders and sixteen mentors trained to create clubs, develop projects, manage events, organize campaigns and network;
3. Established network of eight youth clubs in the CB region;
4. Elaborated strategic plan for the sustainable development of the network of clubs.

Target groups – 1700 young people and active citizens from the local communities in the CBC region; Direct beneficiaries – 756 – participants in training activities – 56 (40 young leaders and 16 mentors) - participants in the project activities and stakeholders – youth clubs, forums, festivals, workshops, language coffees, exhibitions, representatives of media, local authorities, partners and other interested stakeholders – total of 750; Final beneficiaries – 12 000 people from the CBC area.

Project objectives are promotion of young people's participation in representative democracy and civil society through joint creation of an effective model of student parliament, based on best practices of booth countries and abroad, preparation of human resources, technical support and networking; awareness raising about youth problems and youth potential by implementation of cross-border youth network initiatives, generated and designed by students parliaments and jointly implemented and creation of a cross-border network of students parliaments in the whole border region.

Activities through the objective will be fulfilled are: research of Student Self-governance in Bulgarian-Serbian Border Region in order to identified needs and best practices; development of a Common methodology for Student Self-governance; creation of Virtual Community of Practice (VCoP) – web-tool for networking; selection of participating student parliaments/schools; training of youth workers and youth leaders on the base of Methodology previously developed; training of student parliaments and development of network initiatives using VCoP; implementation of exchange visits – youth network initiatives; conclusion forum implementation for reporting, evaluation and future planning and publications – for expert community and for general public in both countries.

Expected results are: one joint research of current situation, needs and best practices in student self-governance in whole border region implanted and a report produced and published; a common Methodology for development of student self-governance created and published; 24 youth workers (school staff members) and 24 youth leaders (representatives of students parliaments) from 12 schools (6 per country) trained on the base of Methodology; 200 students, members of students parliaments trained in youth leadership (approximately 100 per country); one network web-site developed based on the conception of (virtual) Community of Practice – VCoP; min. 6 network initiatives/projects developed by participating school parliaments through VCoP; 3 youth network initiatives implemented through cross-border exchange visits; one cross-border network of students parliament created; 200 collection of materials from the project for expert community and 600 brochures for general public in both countries disseminated, etc.

Website: http://www.fyc-vidin.org/ryp/