Building on the European Year of the Youth actions to stay beyond 2022

On Wednesday, June 21st, YouthProAktiv organized a training program titled “Building on the Actions of the European Year of the Youth beyond 2022: Getting Involved!” Led by our Advocacy Officer Charlotte Taillon, the program spanned three days and covered various intriguing topics, including the European Year of the Youth and the upcoming European Parliament elections in 2024.
The European Year of the Youth 2022
The European Year of the Youth embodies the ideals of engagement, connection, and empowerment for the youth in Europe. It serves as a framework for cooperation and policy development, focusing on European values such as democracy, inclusion, and sustainability. As part of our training, we organized a debate to explore whether young people can contribute to addressing climate change and discussed the available tools for doing so.
In this context, we highlighted the significance of the 2022 European Year of the Youth as a crucial period for reevaluating the European Union’s approach to young people and uncovering a multitude of opportunities that participants may not have been aware of before.
Youth Empowerment
Such opportunities lie within programs like Erasmus+, which enables youth to study, work, or volunteer across Europe. Additionally, the European Solidarity Corps offers a platform for young individuals to make meaningful contributions to society, while the EU Youth Dialogue provides a space for engaging in discussions with policymakers.
These initiatives emphasize the power of collaboration; they cannot be achieved individually. Therefore, the advocacy role of youth workers becomes vital in sustaining these projects. Youth workers play a crucial part in conveying powerful messages that work towards building a better society.
Creating a powerful message
To enhance engagement and effectively pass on messages, one of the activities during the training focused on creating compelling narratives. By incorporating emotions, practicality, audience engagement techniques, and employing strategies like incorporating “killer facts,” personalization, and humor, participants learned how to craft impactful stories.
These storytelling practices are also crucial when it comes to electoral campaigns, to encourage citizens’ participation in elections. Thus, another objective of the training was to ponder upon the 2024 European elections and explore ways to engage the next generation.
We looked into the significance of the European Parliament elections and discussed the different strategies to mobilize young people, emphasizing their capacity to influence the direction of the future, address the evolving world to support youth needs, and empower them through active participation. Furthermore giving the tools for democratic representation and ensuring future stability.
A very complete program of informative sessions and activities that we hope contributed to improve the connections between the EU and young people.