Despite abundant information sources, especially online, recent studies conducted by the ERYICA network reveal that young people across countries find it hard to access reliable and understandable information. In the context of mass disinformation, young people are more than ever in need of assistance in selecting and processing information to make their decisions. Information is a right and in the transition to adulthood, this right is key to shape the future. The essential aim of Youth Information and Counselling (YIC) is to assist young people in all aspects of their lives and their autonomous decision-making.While some specialised information services can be found in the Western Balkans, there are no national structures for generalist youth information services ensuring universal access of young people to quality information and counselling. Young people, especially those with fewer opportunities, significantly lack information on services and options related to essential aspects of everyday life such as healthcare, participation, mobility, education, employment, special support, protection, and so forth. With this project, we seek to set the basis to develop and expand YIC services in the Western Balkans (in the Programme Country North Macedonia and in the Partner Countries Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro) and to promote the integration of the right of young people to information in national youth policies. Under the coordination of ERYICA (Luxembourg), The consortium is composed of CSOs operating in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro and of ERYICA Members in Programme countries (Slovenia, North Macedonia and Spain).

This project is based on need for competent youth workers to support young people in their socio-economic development as responsible citizens with fundamental European values as well as to facilitate civic engagement of youth in reconciliation at various levels. They should be equipped with competences to practice bottom-up and human-centred approach to reconciliation since it is all about people2people actions that contribute to societal reconstruction and finally to society/community transformation. This way, we are contributing also to European education and training policy since we deal with quality of youth work and non-formal education. Improving capacities of youth workers in reconciliation topic also contribute to topic-based diversification inside the youth work field. Youth workers are the key element of this process and they are the first to be addressed. They are ensuring active, systemic, and meaningful participation of youth in issues of peace and security is a demographic and democratic imperative. Project consortium consists of organizations with portfolio in quality youth work, reconciliation, youth activism and participation, advocacy.Main of this project is to improve the quality and foster the innovative approaches and development of youth work efforts through European cooperation and capacity building of youth workers in the field of reconciliation. We will achieve this through 4 specific objectives: - To enhance socio-professional development and international cooperation of youth workers and trainers by strengthening their capacities in the field of effective reconciliation in post conflict regions and providing them with space for exchange of good practice. - To increase capacity of youth workers to design and lead the processes of development of social innovations in reconciliation field by using cross-sector approach and methodology developed by Regional Social Innovation Lab for peace and reconciliation aimed at young people.- To empower and support youth organizations to cooperate, advocate and take an important role in reconciliation process providing them with competences and space to implement innovative ideas on local and international level and involve young people as active actors.-To promote and mainstream Erasmus + programme as one of the most effective ways for youth workers and youth organizations in Europe to receive quality capacity building, advance their efforts in topics of interest and strengthen sustainable relationship between WB and EU.The project consortium consists of 10 partner organizations from Programme and Neighboring Countries (SEE region connecting WB and EU countries) from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, FYROM, Turkey. During 24 months, the project will be implemented through following activities: Partner meeting, Online learning platform, 4 Training Courses, Practical activities, Methodology Development HUB.

The past year has been marked again by rising instability in the Western Balkan (WB) region. This ranges from large scale ongoing protests in Serbia and Bosnia, increasing tensions over borders, trade disputes and the closing of markets and unsanctioned violence against journalist. All of these factors pose significant impediments to the economy, democratic processes, the wellbeing of individuals and also to the process of joining the EU. One of the key underlying reasons behind the tensions plaguing WB is an ever-increasing torrent of nationalism that characterizes local and regional politics and the relations between neighboring countries. Extremism based on national, ethnical or religious background is one of the most evident destabilizing factors both in the EU and in the WB. Thus, the consortium designed Understanding and Challenging Nationalist Extremism — a project that uses a bottom-up approach to tackling nationalist extremisms through educating youth workers (from the EU and WB), designing a toolkit and developing non-formal education methods, through which youth workers from partner countries will empower youth to address cases of extremism. Many large-scale top-down initiatives overlook the fact that virulent nationalism is entrenched in culture and the most effective long-term strategy for diminishing it is to make it culturally less acceptable and for this to succeed, the key target group is youth. The consortium includes 11 organisations from 10 countries coming from the EU and neighboring regions.Objectives:- Increase the level and intensity of cooperation between programme countries and partner countries from WB. - Create a robust youth anti-extremism platform focused on the WB but working with a decidedly inter-regional and trans-sectoral perspective- Increase the capacities of youth organisations based in WB.- Increase the competences of youth workers in WB, the EU and beyond.- Educate youth about recognizing and opposing extremism.- Design a toolkit for educating youth about nationalist extremism and enable youth leaders to better do this.Activities: - 2 transnational project meetings- 3 mobilities of youth workers (at least 24 participants per activity)- 1 youth exchange (at least 58 participants)Outputs:- toolkit- 1 international conference- 3 webinars- webpage- 5 cultural events / public interventions- 4 press conferences

Main aim of the project is raising quality and sustainability of youth programs, through competence development of youth workers and leaders to provide innovative, modern and quality youth work service which effectively respond on current socio-economic needs of young people in EU and Western Balkan. Through our project, we would like to build capacities of youth workers and youth leaders through transfer of skills, experience, knowledge, attitudes and empowerment based on non-formal education activities, practice community activities and development of new methods and tools for efficient, innovative, relevant and modern approach to youth work. Capacity building of youth workers through non-formal education activities, mobility of youth workers and leaders, effective dissemination of competences, knowledge, skills and outcomes and their wide validation and recognition will directly lead to high quality youth work, efficient youth program management, better partnership and networking with other youth organizations from Europe and world, sustainability of organizational resources and capacities, promotion and implementation of youth mobility, socio-professional development of youth workers and trainers. With this project, we are answering to relevant issues concerning youth work: insufficient youth work human capacities and the lack of their capacities, fluid nature of youth work and constant changes of staff in youth organizations and need for their capacity building, new trends in youth field approaches, low level of motivation of young people to engage, low level of youth activism and the need for synergy between online and offline activism of young people. We plan to achieve this through several activities: 4 Mobility activities - Training Courses on topics of online learning as aspect of non-formal education, long-term sustainable support of young people through mentoring, leadership and managing youth initiatives, digital media tools in youth work , follow up practice multiplying activities, production of 2 editions of handbooks, (one of them will be in online digital flexible format), development of youth online platform activities and Methodology development Hub - final product. Project will gather 14 organizations from 12 different countries of Western Balkan, SEE, EU and Program Countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina (SEEYN and ORC Tuzla), Albania (BBA), Serbia (VEM and ECK), Croatia (LDA Sisak), Bulgaria (Ideas Factory, Italy (NUR), Greece(OENIF), Macedonia (YCC Bitola), Lithuania (Creativitas), Slovenia (MC BIT), Turkey (SAUSEM), Montenegro (ADP ZID).