Reviving youth engagement in Greece

Crisis and youth

Nowadays Greece is facing a financial crisis that has multiple effects on society, while Europe in general tries to identify or reconsider its position on the world. Many support that there is lack of core values in Europe, such as solidarity and respect between nations and states. Young activists try to prove them wrong! They organize themselves, cooperate smoothly, promote youth mobility and take various solidarity initiatives. They fight against populism and extremism by all means; they build tomorrow’s Europe by acting immediately today when and where needed.

Volunteering rise in Greece

Youth is one the most affected groups by the crisis in Greece. Youth unemployment rate stands at about 60% and young people’s future perspectives are grim, at best. Thousands of young people emigrated searching for better job opportunities and living conditions; the risk of a brain drain is clearly visible in the near future.

On the other side, the crisis led to a flowering of civil society and volunteering-based initiatives. New initiatives came out and many innovative youth-led projects implemented. Young people have to be nowadays adaptable in order to overcome the challenges and barriers they face. One of this successful youth initiatives will be presented in this article: Youthnet Hellas.

Youthnet Hellas: How it all started

In 2009 a handful of motivated young people from all over Greece decided to channel their vitality and energy in a new youth-led NGO, while making use of their rich experiences and useful knowledge on Youth Policies, European Mobility Programmes and Volunteering. They established “Youthnet Hellas”, a non-governmental organisation that aims to engage young people at different levels through innovative activities, and to promote young people’s active participation, information, social inclusion and active citizenship in community life. It soon became one of the most active and popular youth NGOs in Greece!

Youthnet Hellas’ specific goals include:

• enhancing the role of young people in decision-making processes;
• endorsing the development and implementation of policies supporting children’s and young people’s rights;
• encouraging environment-friendly activities;
• advocating for the respect and advancement of democracy, peace, diversity and human rights;
• strengthening of democratic values and human rights;
• encouraging exchange mobility and multicultural dialogue among young people regardless of their nationality.

Innovation in practice

Youthnet Hellas was innovative since its very first moments. It operates as an online organisation and thus an environment-friendly NGO. It doesn’t use offices, it consists only of volunteers and has never received any state funding. Its members and volunteers live in almost every city of Greece, from little islands and border villages to towns and big cities. Youthnet Hellas already counts more than 350 members and hundreds of active volunteers!

The flexible online way of operating gives the advantage to work with young people from villages and remote areas that don’t have access to any other organisations, projects, initiatives or activities. It gives them the chance to stay informed about youth policies, be more active in their community and take local initiatives.

The organisation’s website and social media pages are used as platforms to inform young people for all the formal and non-formal education opportunities available in Greece and Europe, as well internships and work opportunities. So far, more than 9000 young Greeks follow the news on social media and more than 15000 visit the website daily. The last years, more than 600 young people participated in more than 180 EU funded programmes. In 2014 only, 121 young people (in 35 projects) benefited from these funds!

Recognition at European level

Although working on a voluntary basis, Youthnet Hellas has an important presence, as well as distinctions in European level. Its actions are well recognised abroad in various ways. In 2013 Youthnet Hellas was awarded the European Citizen’s Prize by the European Parliament and the UNESCO label at UNESCO’s 8th Youth Forum in 2013 for the project “Training for Developing Youth Reporting Capacities”. The continuous efforts of its members and volunteers, and the implementation of innovative activities led to another prize in 2015, namely the “NGO of the Year” laureate at the European Democratic Citizenship Awards organised by European Civic Forum. In addition, Youthnet Hellas is the only Greek NGO member of the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe for the 2014-2015 mandate.

All these awards recognized mainly the innovative work that has been done during the writing of the “Greek Youth Policy Report” over the last four years, and the significant efforts to promote the educational mobility of young people in Europe.

Greek youth policy reporting

The absence of national initiatives and campaigns for young people is visible in Greece, so the youth-led organisation, need to step in and provide even more support to young people. During the last years Youthnet Hellas works hard on it and has already influenced the national youth policies by publishing the “Greek Youth Policy Report” annually since 2010.

In this report’s pages, the situation in the youth field in Greece is reflected every year. It highlights the well-organised work done in the youth field, and promotes the main actions and activities implemented by Greek NGOs and youth institutions. Thus, these organisations can see their work and efforts recognized. The report is not only published online, but is also available in printed version in public and university libraries across the country, giving it more prestige and publicity.

Youth policy reporting know-how transfer

Youthnet Hellas strongly believes and works towards a closer cooperation between stakeholders, actors and organizations in the youth field. Developing sustainable synergies among youth-led NGOs would empower more young people globally in a long-term period. Thus, know-how transfer between youth organizations and other relevant institutions is valuable to achieve this goal.

For this reason, the project “Training for Developing Youth Reporting Capacities (You.Re.Ca.)” was implemented on July 2015. 50 young people from 41 countries were given a trained in order to develop capacities so that they are able to create their own countries’ Youth Policy Reports. Experienced trainers transferred this valuable know-how to young people with the aim to develop similar initiatives in their countries.

The You.Re.Ca. project was sponsored by UNESCO and the State of Kuwait and was one of the 15 projects awarded the UNESCO label at UNESCO’s 8th Youth Forum in 2013 out of the 1532 totally submitted projects from around the world. Following its great success, the You.Re.Ca. project was presented during the 9th UNESCO Youth Forum in Paris and the Social Innovation and Global Ethics Forum 2015 in Geneva!

Defending Human Rights and combating hate speech

Youthnet Hellas is a European-oriented organisation that represents most of the core European values in Greece. Active youth participation is its most important sector, while it is active also to values such as respect of human rights, freedom of speech and democratic dialogue. In the past, Youthnet Hellas has contributed a lot with its projects and initiatives in other values such as tolerance and non-discrimination, minority rights and gender equality.

The absence of a National Campaign Committee, led Youthnet Hellas to become a partner of the Council of Europe’s “No Hate Speech Movement” campaign and run it in Greece, by creating a Facebook page and promoting the campaign online in Greek language. Already more than 2,000 people have been informed about this important campaign and many awareness raising activities are planned for the next months throughout Greece.

Looking towards the future

As the 2015 reaches to the end, Youthnet Hellas plans its future activities having in mind young people’s needs and expectations in Greece. It is of high importance to defend human rights and democracy in the times of crisis and Youthnet Hellas will have a leading role in it. Many projects are planned and will be implemented soon, including support mechanisms for young refugees, anti-bullying campaigns and many more. We all strive towards a better and fairer future for Europe’s young generations!

Το παρόν άρθρο δημοσιεύτηκε στο 2ο τεύχος του διεθνούς περιοδικού Activizenship