Download the toolkit in PDF

This toolkit is a collection of the methods, activities and project ideas of the international activity “Young people in action: promoting active citizenship and democracy” organized by the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) with the support of Young European Socialists (YES).

The activity took place in June 2017 in Berlin and was hosted by SJD – Die Falken with the financial support of the European Youth Foundation (EYF). The activity gathered together 24 participants from 16 countries who worked together on the themes of democracy, active citizenship and youth participation.

After the activity, the team gathered the implemented methods as well as the ideas produced during the activity in this toolkit in order to share them with young people and youth organizations who work actively in the eld.

The toolkit presents selected methods implemented during the activity as well as ideas that have been created and developed by the participants. It also includes a short overview of non-formal education, active citizenship and youth participation. In this way, the toolkit introduces the main concepts of the activity and offers methods that can support exploring them while working with a group of young people. In the toolkit, you will also find the daily flow of the activity and several useful resources that will support you exploring the theme more in-depth.

Team and participants hope the reader enjoys the tool-kit and finds content applicable to her*him context.

Active Citizenship

is a term used to describe the involvement of individuals in public life which can take place at local, regional, national and international levels. Youth organisations should support young people, for them to explore and understand the concept of active citizenship and develop skills and competences in order to address and analyse issues concerning the theme as well as be empowered to come up with solutions.

Youth participation

is a process of achieving positive changes in young people’s lives and of building a better community and society. Means to achieve it are different: initiatives, activities, projects that promote youth involvement at very different levels–local, regional, national and international. There are diverse theories dealing with youth participation and it can be approached from different perspectives depending on the context, background etc. It is important to keep in mind the motivation of different actors such as civil society, political organizations, youth organizations might vary as well.

The team

Gohar Ghandilyan
(Armenia/Austria)

Anuschka Ruge
(Germany/Belgium)

James Sleep
(New Zealand/France)

Ana Pirtskhalava
(Georgia)

Matteo Cervi
(Italy/Austria)