On 16-17 February 2016, the 5 partners (Musikcafé After Eight, Internationaler Bund, Fundatia Ruhama, Zefiro Cooperativa, The Children's Society) in the 'Our life. Our voice. Young people and poverty' Erasmus+ funded project met in Stuttgart, Germany. During the 2 days they shared the work done thus far by the young people, best practices, and discussed the next steps.
The two years project led by the YES Forum aims to capture the young people's perceptions of poverty and as a result formulate their recommendations against poverty and what real and true support should look like.
The first phase of the project - 'investigation into poverty' - is soon coming to an end and remarkable progress has been achieved by every organisation and group of young people. The participants discussed the differences in how the young people experience poverty in different EU member states. The output of this first phase of the project will be a booklet summarising their work, having as target audience public bodies dealing with young people’s affairs, policy makers and politicians at regional, national and EU level.
Furthermore, Ingrid Müller from the German Erasmus+ National Agency 'Youth in Action' took part as a guest and invited the partners to present the project at the DJHT Fair, where the young people themselves will be able to talk about their work. She was impressed to see the effort of the partner organisations and was happy to learn about the bottom-up approach which gives the young people a real voice and meaningful involvement, making this project a great example in the European social and youth work field.
Check the project's website for more information and the YES Forum's Facebook page for photos from the meeting.