The Youth Participation Region project aims to create a model of active and cooperative student self-government bodies (parliaments), to bring them together in a cross-border network of 12 such parliaments throughout the border region, to improve their capacity and to provide them with a methodology , appropriate infrastructure (web tools), technical capabilities and practical skills to develop youth networking initiatives.

The project is funded by the Cross-border Cooperation Programme INTERREG-IPA Bulgaria - Serbia.

IMPLEMENTERS

Free Youth Centre - Vidin, Bulgaria, Lead partner

Association for Development of Children and Youth - Open Club - Nis, Serbia

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Creation of a cross-border network of students parliaments in the whole border region.

PROJECT ACTIVITIES

1. Research of Student Self-governance in Bulgarian-Serbian Border Region in order to identified needs and best practices; 2. Development of a Common methodology for Student Self-governance; 3. Creation of Virtual Community of Practice (VCoP) – web-tool for networking; 4. Selection of participating student parliaments/schools; 5. Training of youth workers and youth leaders on the base of Methodology previously developed; 6. Training of student parliaments and development of network initiatives using VCoP; 7. Implementation of exchange visits – youth network initiatives; 8. Conclusion forum implementation for reporting, evaluation and future planning; 9. Publications – for expert community and for general public in both countries. 

PROJECT RESULTS AND OUTPUTS

• 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. 

TARGET GROUPS

1. Youth leaders (members of secondary schools parliaments) from whole Bulgarian-Serbian border region; 
2. Youth workers (experts who support and supervise work of parliaments in schools - they can be pedagogical advisers, psychologists, teachers or order specialists from school staff) in the same region 

PERIOD OF IMPLEMENTATION

17.05.2019 – 16.08.2020

OVERALL BUDGET

EUR 146 309,22, of which: EUR 124 362,83 European funding and EUR 21 946,39 national co-financing