"The ""VolumeUp"" is a project that initiated by the consortium consisting of 4 organizations from Armenia, Moldova, Germany and Portugal. The project will last on 01/09/2017 - 01/07/2019, with the total duration of 22 months.It contains variety or capacity building and mobility activities to reach the main goal of the project to build a capacity for organizations working in the filed of voluntary work and participation.The idea of the project ""VolumeUp"" is to build capacity for the organizations of consortium, by creating a platform for cooperation, bringing together SCI member and partner organizations, developing staff competencies in the fields of active youth participation, promotion of peace and conflict transformation through voluntary work.This project will create opportunities for member and partner organizations to build a capacity for stronger NGO, understand the core values of SCI network, to support their integration in the network. The project’s mission is building capacity of the organizations working in the field of volunteering and youth engagement.Project aims at- Raising awareness of the youngsters in the participating countries on voluntary work as a way of active participation- Building stronger capacity for involved SCI organizations to promote voluntary workObjectives of the course are:- Changing the perception of voluntary work among the youth of participating countries- Developing the organizations’ competencies on voluntary management- Developing diverse tools for promotion voluntary work in respective countries- Promoting active youth participation through voluntary work- Promoting peace and conflict transformation through voluntary work- Providing a platform for exchange of experience within SCI organization- Reinforcing organizational development by sharing the best experience- Engaging various stakeholders to develop the common policy for promotion of voluntary work.The activities and working methods are designed to encourage full participation, and are based on participants existing knowledge and experience. Participants will gain a better the understanding of all areas covered, improving the quality of their organisations and their own work"

Historically, young people have faced social exclusion, and the recent economic downturn has prompted high unemployment, which particularly affects the younger generation. However,some disadvantaged groups of young people face exclusion in the longer term for reasons beyond the current crisis. Remaining outside the global labor market has far-reaching consequences – not solely economic. These include a loss of confidence,an undermining of trust and expectations,and an increasing risk of social exclusion and disengagement from society. Apart from the economical crisis there are other issues that affect youth and lead to political crisis. Global threats such as terroristic attacks and armed conflicts caused a huge refugee and migration wave in Europe. These and many other factors stipulate increasing of intolerance,xenophobia,violence,conflicts oriented by cultural fears, numerous stereotypes and prejudices,intercultural misunderstanding,inability to think critically and lack of intercultural competence in general. Young people are more than others affected by those issues,especially being in a situation of current economic crisis. They feel afraid, they are frustrated, they don’t know what to feel and how to react, as a result they became either amorphus or join the extremist movements, and they definitely need to be supported in this hard situation by adults, by peers, by educational institution, by NGOs and by policy makers. Tackling youth unemployment,social exclusion,intercultural communication and youth participation continues to be a policy priority for European and national governments and the need to empower young people is increasingly recognized in this process. We see youth empowerment as an attitudinal,structural,and cultural process whereby young people gain the ability, authority, and agency to make decisions and implement change in their own lives and the lives of other people, including youth and adults. In other words empowered young people will exercise power over one’s life by being skilled, critically aware, and active in creating community change. The long-term project “InFormal – integration of non-formal education approach to the formal education system for youth empowerment at local level” is an attempt to use non-formal education as a tool for youth empowerment in order to address all the mentioned issues and to build a stable and productive trans-national co-working platform for educators coming from formal education and youth field (NGOs and other youth authorities). LTTC objectives: • To unite efforts of youth workers coming from formal and other youth field backgrounds for youth empowerment at local level by using non-formal education • To build a cross sectorial network and to create joined actions to address the current challenges or for addressing the current challenges • To build a necessary set of competences for proficient use of NFE instruments and tools for youth empowerment at local level • To discuss the recognition of competences gained by NFE • To provide the possibility to plan, experiment and to get feedback to the NFE activities • To introduce and discuss the ways of integration of NFE activities to the system of formal education • To provide the opportunity to assess the quality of NFE activities and youth empowerment process at local level • To create a detailed guide in English with recommendations and concrete examples and references of using non-formal education approach within formal system. It will be uploaded to the online platform and shared though the aprtners network. The training course will unite 35 youth workers, youth leaders, teachers, professors, community leaders, and youth policy makers coming from Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Portugal, Korea, Luxembourg, Italy and Poland committed for long- term learning process and social change. After the project course we expect our participants:to change their way of work and to make it more participative and transparent for youth; to understand the approach and principles of non-formal education and to use it for youth empowerment;to be able to use non-formal education tools during lessons, lectures, meetings, sessions, training activities they organize – giving more freedom and responsibility to learners;to be equipped with a set of other tools of youth empowerment (coaching and mentoring); o become active actors in promoting youth participation at local level. As for the methods, all of them will be non-formal,no-frontal.The wider impact is on partner organizations. This can be called European level impact. By innovating their approaches partners can plan high quality projects and organize own trainings and multiplying the results of this projects separately in each country. Moreover, it is expected that this project will strenghten bonds between partner organizations even more, and they can also learn from new ones in the partnership, so it would result in further common projects.

This is a project applied by Organizacija kreativnog okupljanja (Organization of creative grouping) - OKO from Serbia, with members of consortium from Croatia, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Spain, Turkey, Portugal, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina.It has 5 main activities:- Coordination meeting- Training course- Workshop- Local theatre plays- Online final evaluation meetingBased on our experiences with theatre projects by and for young people, we have come to the conclusion that theatre productions organized by young people for young people are an excellent tool to promote social topics, such as inclusion of LGBTTIQ groups of young people and the fight against severe economic challenges. By allowing young people to be actively involved in all phases of the development, preparation, implementation, and follow-up of such theatre productions, their perspectives, interests and needs can be reflected in a unique way.Objectives of the project:• Encourage an open atmosphere and building of team spirit among the participants from diverse backgrounds and diverse identities• Increase participants’ knowledge and appreciation of one another’s culture and identity• Enhance participants’ intercultural skills and tolerance• Raise awareness of stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination and find ways to overcome them• Exchange experiences related to projects dealing with LGBTTIQ issues• Present and practice a variety of non-formal learning techniques useful for working with young people and LGBTTIQ groups• Empower and motivate participants to use theatre methods in youth work• Empower and motivate participants to develop theatre productions by and for young people to combat discrimination• Inform participants about the Programme Erasmus+ and its opportunities• Foster mutual support and cooperation among the international participants and encourage the formation of long-term friendship and cooperation.Methods used are interactive and include active participation, depending on the activity they include: brainwarming, ice-breaking, video and ppt presentations, audio elements, individual and mixed groups work, open space, theatre techniques and performances, discussions, local activities, reflections.