The Project Influence Youth is a KA2 project funded by the Erasmus Plus program of European Union.  The project number is: 2020-2-ES02-KA205-015343, for duration of 20 MONTHS. It is a strategic partnership for innovation in the field of Youth aimed at empowering youth and social workers/operators who work with young people at risk of radicalization, equipping them with efficient instruments and methodologies aimed at fostering critical thinking as well as preventing radicalization phenomenon.

Project partners:

  • MINE VAGANTI NGO – ITALY
  • SC PSIHOFORWORLD – ROMANIA
  • Kapadokya Egitim ve Arastirma Dernegi-Turkey
  • Namoi  – Russian Federation
  • ABARKA ONGD – Spain

Due to COVID-19, the Kick-off meeting was done online in December 2020. As the pandemic advancing and our project moving forward, with common agreement, all partners decided to meet in real in Nevsehir (Turkey) from 27 to 30 April 2021 for fulfilling the TPM requirement, with an objective to put everything done so far together and analyze the challenges faced from each country.

For this TPM, 4 countries could respond physically (Turkey, Romania, Russia and Spain), Italy could only participate online due to covid-19 strict restriction applied in Italy.

REALIZATIONS.

  1. Review of the Intellectual Output 1. Training Course Format on “Youth work preventing radicalization among young people”. Here we had 11 points to discuss. Those 11 points as tasks to achieve and complete the IO1. A deep analysis was conducted and the work methodology explained to all partners. Focus was highlighted on the remaining part of the tasks from task 6 to task 11:  Production of the Final Research Report, Cross-analysis and matching, Elaboration of Forum Theatre, Media Literacy and Digital Storytelling modules, Structuring the educational program, Submission to stakeholders to collect their feedbacks, Finalization of the Format.
  2. Advices were shared on how to deal with our stakeholders with the relevance on their feedbacks and involvement into our project. Meetings should be friendly, straight forward and with a key note on what they will gain participating in such project.
  3. Deadline for IO1 publication was decided for 30th June 2021 and each partner to be ready to work on translation into national language.
  1. ABARKA expressed the need of constituting an IT team to start working on the IO3 which consist on the online platform.
  2. Our TPM Opening Ceremony was done with the warm speech from the Mayor of ACIGÖL who thanks us for the initiative and promise to support us in achieving the project goals. He said it was a great opportunity to have such project in his locality and nearby and hope we will not only stop on this one. He also conducted a closing ceremony delivering certificates to participants accompanying with a very special gift package. Later on the Mayor free his agenda to share the dinner with us on 29th evening after a long day fasting.
  3. Meeting with the Governor. This meeting lasted for an hour with an interesting exchange with the Governor of the ACIGÖL district. He explained us a bit what his role consisted. He plays a representative role in the district. It is not easy to be at his position at they are thousand young people applying for this position and only hundred are chosen within the whole country. He deals nearly with every domain to improve people life in the district: Education, Health, Jobs, Social care, Infrastructure, Industry… He had a strong interest on opening to international that is why he is learning English. We presented him our respective organizations and the purpose of the project to what he had also strong interest and promise to support and collaborate with us. I personally thing he can play a significant role in our project as he also work at immigration office in Istanbul.
  4. Educational centers visits. We had the opportunity also to visit a Youth center were young people are attended freely having the opportunity to learn various skills and develop some competencies such as: Language, Civic and values education, Music… We also visited a Special educational center for disabled people were the team could see and by some handmade articles…
  5. Cultural visits. During our stay in Nevsehir, our afternoons were enriched by several tours visiting local market, monuments and beautiful landscapes. This helped us to connect with local population and discover the beauty of Nevsehir.