SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL ADVOCACY. YOUTH INITIATIVES THAT CHANGE COMMUNITIES
The quality of young people’s work, the involvement and activity of young people, largely depends on the level of training of specialists who work with young people, as well as on their values and motivation.
Over 2,000 specialists across all regions in Ukraine have completed the special course “Civil Education for Youth Workers,” which is being implemented as part of the UN-supported Youth Worker programme, and have helped young people realize their initiatives in their communities.
In 2019, these training sessions were organized in Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kyiv oblasts, jointly with local administrations and youth organizations.
On the occasion of International Youth Day, we would like to give an account of some successful youth projects implemented by people who have completed this course.
VOLYN OBLAST
We debunked fake news, discovered fact-checking, and learned how to think critically
Schoolchildren and university students in Volyn Oblast have done special training in advocacy and professional skill development, as well as learned the basics of community service, leadership competence, time management and volunteer activities.
Their successful advocacy campaigns soon bore fruit — street lights were installed in one of the dormitory districts in Lutsk, while traffic lights were set up on Vidrodzhennia Street.
What is more, a local targeted programme of Lutsk City Council was amended to increase the number of containers for separate garbage collection. This idea was suggested by schoolchildren with a view to making their city greener and more pleasant for Lutsk residents.
“This initiative is a remarkable example of young people working with young people for the sake of young people,” said Oksana Romanyuk, a youth worker and a manager of the Mission. Leader project.
We learned self-defence and advocated for our own community
For the first time in Volyn Oblast, more than 200 young women and girls had the opportunity to learn the basics of self-defence. They were also given some training in how to administer first aid, and learned how to identify false information on the Internet and protect their personal data.
“By teaching female students, we lay a solid foundation, because they are future teachers and educators, who will be able to pass their knowledge on to more than one generation of girls,” explains Svitlana Milinchuk, who has completed the Civil Education for Youth Workers course.
In addition, during the festival, the participants marked dangerous places in their city on a map and, together with an initiative group, conducted a detailed analysis of the unlit streets of Lutsk.
Based on this analysis, they submitted respective proposals to Lutsk City Council and Volyn Oblast Patrol Police. In the end, issues related to the lighting of four streets were resolved.
DNIPROPETROVSK OBLAST
We cooperated with the local authorities and created a youth centre in the town of Pidhorodne
Although the inhabitants of the town of Pidhorodne include more than 20,000 young boys and girls aged 14–35, there was no separate centre or club where these people could spend quality time together.
Youth worker Valentyna Huz decided that it was high time they changed this state of affairs, “While doing the course ‘Civil Education for Youth Workers,’ I had the idea of creating a youth centre that would bring together young people and enable them to make good use of their spare time.”
It was local young people who initiated a petition to the town authorities and secured support for the creation of a youth centre in the town library.
This has enabled university students and schoolchildren from the town of Pidhorodne not only to have fun time in the youth centre, but also to study by attending training sessions in advocacy, scouting, management, and volunteerism.
From being socially passive to creating your own projects
Youth work also involves interaction with young people from at-risk groups. One of the vulnerable groups comprises young people who have given up drugs or alcohol. Such young people often relapse and return to their unhealthy habits due to the lack of social adaptation programmes.
With a view to helping such young people break this vicious circle, a project called “Civil and Legal Resocialization of Young People” was launched in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast at the initiative of Oleksandr Shulyak, who has completed the training course. The project mainly aims at working with young people who have given up drugs, and more specifically at the rehabilitation and adaptation of young people and their further social integration.
“During the project, we managed to instill in several very young people who have undergone rehabilitation the desire to engage in creative volunteerism and creative activity. They are currently actively working on new ideas and projects,” said youth worker Shulyak.
The programme of the course “Civil and Legal Resocialization of Young People” was improved thanks to the close cooperation of such young people with representatives of civil society and local authorities, and experts.
KYIV OBLAST
Critical thinking is a new modern trend
Although the ability to present oneself well and to speak in public is extremely valuable in modern society, not everyone has the courage to address a large audience. The training events held as part of the project “From active youth to an active community” taught young people from Tarashcha how to overcome their anxiety before making a public speech, and how to increase their confidence in their abilities.
High school and university students from the town honed their critical thinking skills, analysed information to see whether or not it has been falsified, as well as gained practical knowledge of how to use information and communication technologies.
“The project has created a network of socially active young people — future members of Tarashcha Youth Council,” said Udovenko.
Activists have already started developing youth policy in their community.
“A residence” for young people from the town of Tarashcha — the transformation of a library into a centre for youth innovations
“The creation of a Centre for Youth Innovations and the situational games played during training events helped unite local young people and develop their leadership skills,” said youth worker Iryna Udovenko.
The close cooperation of young people from Tarashcha with their community and local authorities helped turn the reading room of the town library into a Centre for Youth Innovations — a free space for the self-realization of creative young people, and a place for holding training events, presentations, master classes, meetings, indoor activities and socializing.
Here young people can participate in training courses in critical thinking, media literacy and information security, as well as use free modern digital information services and access the latest literary works, games, and materials for creativity.
Active participants in the project joined the newly created Youth Community Council, and are ready to put their acquired knowledge and skills to practice.
About the project:
Since 2014, UNDP has been providing support to the Youth Worker state programme. This is a platform for joint learning, communications and providing professional support to specialists who work with young people in the civil society and state sectors. The programme was initiated by Ukraine’s Youth and Sports Ministry, the State Institute for Family and Youth Politics, and UNDP. Since UNDP started to support the programme, almost 3,000 youth workers from across Ukraine have completed it.
Since 2018, a special course “Civil Education for Youth Workers” has been running as part of the programme. This course enables youth workers to help young people be more active community members, understand human rights and their own identity, develop an interest in social processes, apply critical thinking to these processes, and become drivers of these processes themselves.
In 2019, these training sessions were organized in Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv oblasts, jointly with local administrations and youth organizations. Some of those who completed the course received financing, through taking part in a contest, for the implementation of initiatives on civil education for young people in their communities. The NGOs that are members of the civil society hub network helped these youth workers bring their ideas to life.
The entry was authored by:
Anna Mysyshyn, Knowledge Management and Innovations Associate in UNDP in Ukraine;
The entry was edited by:
Tetyana Kononenko, UNDP Communication Unit
You can also read this article in Ukrainian
Originally published at https://medium.com on August 12, 2020.
