August 24
11:00 – 12:30WBU-ICEVI Concurrent Sessions
WBU-ICEVI Concurrent Session 19: Youth leadership and empowerment
Topic 3:Youth engagement in Europe and the World
Speaker:Jessica Schröder, Head International Relations, Deutscher Blinden- und Sehbehindertenverband
-presentation is divided into three parts: Presentation of three vital European and world wide acting youth networks, some key requirements and key challenges which foster or may prevent effective and self-reliant youth work and hinds for some funding opportunities to financially support youth engagement
Presentation of youth networks
VIEWS International
-VIEWS International (Visually Impaired education and work support) is a network consisting of informal youth groups and NPOs acting in the youth sector of 13 different European countries
-Members are from Turkey, Italy, Belgium, France, Greece, Germany, United Kingdom, Russia and Romania
-All involved youngsters and young adults are partially sighted or blind
-Central Office is Based in Belgium Líge
-Objectives:
-to facilitate the meetings between young European people, majority of whom are visually impaired
-to develop spirit of solidarity and democracy, specific of the European culture
-to optimise the chances of this young people to be integrated in the social, private and professional life as autonomously as possible
-to obtain social, intercultural, communication and language skills, to improve chances of employment, access to quality education and international working and social participation opportunities
Activities
Organization, coordination and performance of:
-international youth exchanges related to issues of sports, recreation, intercultural dialogue,dismantling of prejudices and misconceptions, increasing self-confidence and improvement of self-esteem through body language workshops, raising the issue of self-performance, beauty (make up dressing) and creativity efforts in theatre playing, art works and creative writing
-Conduction of European voluntary services: Sending blind and partially sighted youths and young adults for a period of three to 12 months abroad to volunteer in an NPO, school, social centre or art project to foster the development of vital skills to cope with challenges and invent creative and efficient solutions for arising difficulties
-Organizations of abroad job shadowing lasting up to one month in a form of a shortterm internship, to provide participants with insights into work processes, to experience different cultural environments and working habits and behaviours
-Performance of international study visits up to three weeks to investigate and discuss on specific issues like educational systems, access to the labour market or the advancements and obstacles for social Media actions of blind and partially sighted persons
-Encouragements of members to organize local activities to foster the awareness for international issues and opportunities among the youngsters
Practical examples of the work of VIEWS
-Annually European voluntary services in Belgium in the Central office of VIEWS, in an adjacent blind school for primary children and toddlers and in a neighbouring centre for refugees which supports the social integration and foreign language competencies
-Participants are coming from various European countries and sometimes also from neighbouring countries like Tunesia or Morrocco
-Testimonials of participants proved that:
-Very positive experience and encouraging challenge due to the fact that a new language needed to be used for all daily activities, ranging from work issues, to organizing the homework and buy daily items
-Great time due to fantastic new people, wonderful culture, nice Belgium food and beverages and exciting tasks ranging from teaching refugees in French, organizing youth exchanges and various intercultural events for youngsters in cooperation with the central VIEWS Office to teaching blind children in keyboard writing, handcraft making and Braille reading
-Establishment of contacts to members of the VIEWS network which were acting as a door opener for future vocational opportunities
Participation of youngsters in the network
-The board of administrators consist of blind and partially youngsters, convenes monthly meetings and is responsible for the strategic planning, the outline of annual budgets, the monitoring of the central office work and the arrangements of annual life general assemblies
-All members are encouraged and supported in developing and organizing international activities for youngsters wit the financially support of the central office and external funding sources
-All members contribute with own descriptions to the annual activity report of VIEWS and help to maintain and enhance the content of its website and Facebook account
Noisy vision network
-Network of European youngsters and young adults mainly partially sighted from countries likeItaly, Island, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Finland and Spain. The network constantly enhances their members. Members are individuals and are not bound to a certain organization.
-Objectives:
-to promote the accessibility of the public environment and to raise social awareness for environmental and social obstacles within society, which prevent full inclusion and social participation in all aspects of life for partially sighted persons
-To promote sports, walking, hiking and the nature as an engine to achieve physical strength, solidarity within a group, enjoyment of coping with the challenges of nature and happiness and satisfaction
Activities
-Organization of tracking tours through mountainous in Italy connected with actions to raise the awareness for social difficulties of partially sighted persons,
-To organize sensitization campaigns to promote the needs and rights of vision impaired persons through social media coverage, video production and performance of dinners in the darks and other events to simulate the challenge of being partially sighted for fully sighted persons
History of the network
-Funder: Dario Sorgato a young men diagnosed with usher syndrome in his mid twenties, which progressively deteriorates his sight and hearing, was passionate to connect fun and entertaining activities with the action for social sensitization.
-He organized an accessibility dream factory one week lasting workshop in Berlin, to make partially sighted youngsters think and act out with creative methods, which difficulties they are facing and which solutions can be promoted to facilitate their lives.
-Due to the success of the dream factory an informal network with European youngsters was established.
-Their symbol is a yellow paper thumb
-The network organizes annually international hiking events and tries to expand their activities to other sports, outdoor activities like travelling with a caravan and advocacy campaigns to show partially sighted people in gathered in public raising their needs
Network of change
-A network of grass-root-level-organizations from all over the world, who support these organizations in exchanging ideas, offering an onlineplatfprm to present themselves and to promote their projects
-Network is not formal yet, but has already developed a constitution, procedural working mechanisms and administrative working groups to keep the work of the network running
-The origins of the network refer to the Kanthari institute which educates potential social leaders in tools and abilities they need to create and operate their own organizations
-Objectives:
-Promotion of grass-root-level-organizations,their projects, needs and successes
-Offer support and encouragement to enable them to continue their project, to develop mechanisms for sustainability, to create space for exchanging ideas, create solidarity and support among the members of the network
Activities
-Building and maintaining a website, which displays information about our network members,
-Providing a fund raising system, which transfer funds to certain projects
-Offering peer support sessions to support our members in their daily tasks
-To offer consultations to discuss certain vibrant issues, like fund raising or the continuation and enhancing of our network
-Development of promotional material like videos and print media, to promote the activities of our network and to make our projects visible in a stirring way
Challenges of our networks
-Getting funds to run and sustain the networks,
-To keep up the working spirit of members to operate the network effectively,
-To find consent and enough room for discussion about important matters to run the network
-To find engaged people who are willing to take up responsibility on a voluntary base and which are does and not talkers
-To find ways of effective communication especially via virtual systems
-To establish a proper structure to run the organization
-To create visibility in the public of each network