Youth in Action / Juventud en Accion
EU – LA Seminar on youth participation, active citizenship and local governance/Porto Alegre, Brazil/4-10 February 2006
The seminar brought together 25 youth leaders from 7 European and 6 Latin American countries: Austria, Germany, Italy, Lithuania Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Bolivia, Brazil Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay. The main aim of this seminar was to foster youth mobility and volunteering as a means to enhance positive youth action with emphasis on youth work models which empower young people through their active participation in local development. The activities included an exchange of experience regarding best practice in fostering youth participation and active citizenship; training on aims and procedures of the YOUTH programme (Action 1 and 2) as well as an assessment of the impact of YOUTH projects run between the present EU and LA organisations over the past years. Participants reflected upon priorities and needs of youth work in their countries and developed innovative forms of cooperation between their organisations. By doing interviews and visiting public youth-serving agencies and local youth NGO’s, participants were able to gain insight into youth work practice and the situation of young people in Porto Alegre.