Young people represent the future of our European society, they are the leaders of tomorrow.
The main aim is to empower and engage disadvanataged youth from rural communities in decision making process, strengthening European values and democracy among them. Empowering youth, we give them the opportunity to express their vision and collaborate with local authorities in order to approach and solve community issues raising youth participation.

The project will take place in Dambovita region, Central South Romania,in disadvantaged rural areas.

Youth from the region of Dambovita, from rural areas are young people with socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, with fewer opportunities. These young people are struggling with a lot of challenges like: living in poor communities with poor infrastructure, poor education facilities, they are unemployed or part of NEET category. Disadvantaged youth usually are the ones who not care about democratic participation, decision making process, European Union, European integration, and they are vulnerable in front of manipulation and Euroscepticism. The Eurosceptic current took advantage on these challenges and spread among youth Eurosceptic narratives. Also, authorities disregards the ability of these youth to participate in the decision-making process or to make their voices heard.

Our project is addressed mainly to young people, to a wide target group aged between 14-25 years old, young people with fewer opportunities who face socio-economically obstacles, living in disadvantaged rural areas. Also our project targets local authorities, decision makers, youth professionals and ordinary citizens. We aim to organize 25 workshops with 20-30 participants per each workshop and a 7 day summer youth camp, involving approximately 600 participants in total. Each workshop will approach a community problem and the topic of active citizenship, democracy and youth participation. Experienced Youth workers will lead activities and will assure that young people will have the opportunity to make their voice heard and their ideas will be listened and made known to the authorities.

Once the idea will get funding we will undertake the next steps:
1.Preparation: project team completion, sharing responsibility and tasks among project team, project calendar, project identity creation (project logo, visual elements, video, etc), partnership agreements with stakeholders.
2.Implementation: reaching out communities and target group for activities, call for participants, sending invitation to local authorities and stakeholders, setting-up workshops according to the calendar.
3.Monitoring and control: monitoring project progress, achieved objectives, results, feedback of participants and project team after each activity, report of project team, assessing impact on participants.
4.Follow-up and dissemination: sharing project results at local, national and European level.

After project completion we expect that 600 young participants from disadvantaged rural areas will strenghten interest and knowledge in civic life, decision making process at local, national and European level; will become changes makers, involved in shaping the future of European democracy; will participate actively in their local community and society by volunteering, activating in NGOs, meeting authorities; will strengthen values as: democratic participation, civic engagement, the sense of belonging to the European space; strengthened relationship of young people with main actors of society (authorities, NGOs, media, educational institutions). The target communities will have the opportunity to develop, to access European fundings in order to overcome socio-economically disadvantages.

Our project looks to approach democracy and active citizenship through innovative non-formal education methods, engaging actively each young people. We aim to bring together during activities young people with different life backgrounds to discuss about civic engagement, community issues, involving them to come up with solutions for the identified issues. Also we aim to build a strong communication and relation between youth and local authorities, decision makers that will definitely strengthen democracy and active citizenship. Young people’s ideas will be listened and discussed. Once their voice is listened, youth will be motivated to be active citizens and to participate in democratic process as long this is one of the best solutions to solve the problems they face.

Democracy and youth participation is one of the most important factors that can bring extraordinary changes in our lifes and our communities. Young people have the ability to become change makers and leaders of tomorrow. As a consequence is the responsability of youth organizations and youth professionals to empower young people and give them the opportunity to become change makers. Our associations main purpose is to empower youth and strengthen among them democratic participation, civic spirit that will strenghten on long term the democratic status of our societies.

- 7.800 euro - office expenses (activity room rental, material costs, activity travel costs, protocol) for the 25 workshops;
- 15.000 euro - travel and accommodation for summer camp for 30 persons, including materials for activities, conference room;
- 4000 euro - promotion, advertising, public relations, visual materials;
- 750 euro - accounting and financial management services of the project;
- 11.300 euro - personnel costs.

A clear mind not involved in the project sees from objective point of view and have the ability to give objective feedback. We are open to general feedback about our project idea, aspects that can be improved regarding clearness and conciseness of idea.