And here it is, another year behind us. The year 2023 has brought many new and unexpected changes, but we’ll get to them later. First, let’s go over what we’ve done and what we’ve experienced together with you.
If we look at last year in terms of numbers, it was a really successful year for us and for you. We managed to arrange 79 mobilities, including 39 training courses and 47 youth exchanges. The most visited country was Spain 16 times [flag = es], second place was Portugal with 12 [flag = pt] and third place was Bulgaria [flag = bg] 8 times. The furthest we have been was Kyrgyzstan [flag = kg]. We have also successfully hosted foreign participants and this was on up to 4 of our own projects, namely:
Green Education Through Sports
We have experienced a lot together in the project. In mid-February, a training course Green Education Through Sports took place in Maladinovo. And as one of the participants said. „It was FUN! The training was intense, full of workshops, interesting speakers from the field and we got the most out of it.“ Later we enjoyed several local events – hiking, yoga, even met with high school students and talked about the impact of sporting events on the environment and what they themselves can do to make a difference. We finished the project in Portugal at the ENGSO conference.
As part of the project, we created a course for all those who organise events – big and small. The course is divided into 5 modules, with a quiz at the end of each one to help you remember the information.
E-motional
Then in April we had a very intensive training course in Modra on important topics of mental health, which was attended by an expert in the topic, our colleague Filip Kňažek, together with a second expert Katka Ružičková.
Authentic YOUth
July belonged again to self-development and in Čičmany we taught youth workers how to stay on the ground in today’s inauthentic society and still be yourself. We showed them through various workshops and exercises how to stay motivated so that they can motivate others.
Careerification
Our last project in 2023 was a youth exchange in the beautiful surroundings of Podhajska in August, about the importance of making the right choice for your future career. Through various simulations and workshops, the participants learned how to reach their goals faster.
In 2023, we successfully completed the Second Chance project, in which we taught many young people how to make homemade cleaning products, homemade cosmetics from commonly available raw materials or other eco-friendly products that are an essential part of every household. The workshops also included upcycling an old garment into a headband, a shopping bag or a decorative heart. The place where the most bio-waste is generated, the kitchen, was not forgotten either – workshop participants learned how to store food so that it does not go to waste and how to conjure up delicious and nutritious food from seemingly unusable raw materials.
If you’re wondering how to run such a workshop, check out the instructions in the guide, which can be found HERE.
The financial education project has provided new knowledge to many young people, youth workers and even high school students who do not yet have their own finances, but it is best to gain financial knowledge as early as possible. As part of the project, we held 3 online workshops on budgeting, saving and how to create your own digital budget planner. We held 5 offline workshops and we are happy to see that many young people have gained new knowledge in the field of finance. We hope that they will continue to be interested in learning about finance and that they will realise how important financial literacy is.
The aim of the RISE project was to ensure the participation of vulnerable groups in decision-making processes while recommending gender-sensitive measures. The RISE project brought us a lot of new experiences in 2023, a nice collaboration with the Dúbravka Family Centre, we got to know the stories of many students from the pandemic days, and we organized several workshops on misinformation, propaganda and critical thinking development.
In 2024, we are launching the second year of cooperation with international partners in the Progress project. Last year, we created research and educational videos that you can watch in Slovak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCvWy6MtNRY&list=PLpsa7gv-p8Xp9taIXUoTDPLhtCqcrzvGs Their aim is to provide ideas for games that families and children can play together outdoors and spend their free time actively. We are gradually introducing ambassadors from 7 countries to the project and this year we will be organising sports days in different parts of Slovakia!
Within the framework of the Spoclimat project, we carried out two plogging projects. The first one took place in the Pečany forest, where about 10 people took part and in a little over an hour we managed to collect a really big amount of waste. The second plogging was in Dúbravka, where we had only a few participants who were all the more passionate about the cause. Together we cleaned up a very well hidden black dump near the stadium and at least for a small part we relieved the nature. At the same time, as part of the project, we launched a diagnostic test for all sports organisations, clubs and, for example, schools. A TEST to help you find out if you are practicing sport appropriately in terms of environmental impact.
The aim of the project is to motivate young people to take an interest in the European Parliament elections in 2024, but it also aims to build an overall interest in civic participation and an interest in being part of a democratic state and participating in decision-making in the country, not just taking part in the 2024 elections. As part of this project, EulectionVille – a game on democracy and local government – was played by students from up to 13 secondary schools from all over Slovakia. Later, they took part in a seminar on the European Union and learned how the EU works, the history of Slovakia and the EU, what it means to be in the EU and what benefits the EU brings to students. We hope that the game and the seminars held will increase young people’s participation in the 2024 elections. There are still important activities ahead of us to help motivate even more students to vote in the elections.
At the end of 2023, the conference concluded a project that took us all the way to Kyrgyzstan! As part of the Comedeva project, students and youth workers learned more about the importance of democratic values through learning about their country’s past under socialism. The project included working with innovative learning methods where participants created their own digital museums serving the general public. This project brought together organizations from Central and Eastern Europe along with organizations from Central Asia!
P4SE
This January we finished an ecological project that took us through Peru, the Philippines and Kenya to Liptovský Mikuláš 🙂 Together with our partners, we evaluated and completed the educational activities that focused on youth education in the field of environmental protection and ecology.
Equal opportunities for all are important to us. That’s why this year we have made a special effort to support the education of women and girls who are interested in getting involved in social entrepreneurship. At an educational training session in Sofia, the girls learned more about the practical steps needed to master entrepreneurship.
All last year, we were also closer to you through local events and visits to your high schools.
And we have also attended countless international meetings to discuss future collaborations.
So what lies ahead for us in 2024?
We Sport
Gender identity is still cause of discrimination and racism in the Sport sector, while on the contrary, Sport and its values should be a vector of respectful and inclusive behaviours. The European Institute for Gender Equality in its “Gender in Sport” report (2017) underlines how “Sports are predominantly divided into ‘male’ and ‘female’ domains and in many sports mixed gender participation is not accepted. In many cases, sports governing structures and the media have sent messages that confirm these divisions rather than challenge them. Moreover, the portrayal of women and men athletes by the media reinforces stereotypical perceptions of gender roles”.
GET UP – Gender Equality Toolkit Using Pedagogy
The project aims at promoting gender equality in sport through the creation and development of innovative educational tools. It is in line with all the objectives of the Erasmus+ program in the field of sport and European policies. The tools and activities conducted will have the purpose of using education in and through sports in order to promote the positive values of sport and encourage equal access for boys and girls to participate in sports and physical activity by combating discrimination based on gender.
RurALL
RurALL addresses the major challenge of depopulation in rural areas that is considered as one of most universal challenges of Danube area. Consequently, rural areas are facing lack of highly educated labour force and economic competitiveness, increasing ageing population, low accessibility and reducing quality of public services.
In 2021, the European Union (EU) faced a concerning issue with a high percentage of young individuals aged 15 to 29 falling into the category of Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET). Specifically, 13.1% of young people were classified as NEET, which raised significant alarms, particularly in rural regions. This situation not only negatively impacted the well-being and living standards of NEETs but also posed threats to the social and economic sustainability of these areas. To address this pressing challenge, the EU set a target to reduce the NEET rate to below 9% by 2030 and recognized the revitalization of rural regions as a shared European vision. In response, the Back on Track project was developed as a means to tackle these challenges and contribute to achieving these common goals.
Young people in Europe and especially those in Eastern Europe (be it countries in the EU or in the EU neighborhood), who are more likely overlooked and under-engaged in civic life due to the disenchantment of society with politics because of the overlapping crisis of the last decade need better cooperation mechanisms among themselves, increased access to engaging non-formal education and training, including physical or virtual mobilities in order to make their voices heard. They need to learn and exercise key competences, such as active European citizenship, intercultural dialogue, navigating online media and understanding the mechanisms of disinformation and manipulation. But what is more, this learning needs to expose them not only to their immediate realities, but also to those of peers experiencing similar processes in their societies, in order to gain a broader understanding of the problematics of their times, but also to find common solutions.
If you have made it this far, we want to thank you again from the bottom of our hearts for your patience and kindness. We hope that 2024 will bring new challenges for us all.
– Your ADEL Slovakia team
