”MIJARC Europe Paths” – an annual work plan co-funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Union.


The year 2021 will mark the end of the 4-year (2018-2021) strategic cycle of MIJARC Europe, led around the three thematic focus points and the four operational objectives adopted by the General Assembly in 2017.

Therefore, the main challenge lies on capitalising on the outcomes and the achievements of the activities implemented over the past three years and on transforming those into tools that will help build the capacities of our member organisations and nourish the next four-year strategic cycle. Our network is strong when its members are strong and our national organisations grow stronger when their young members are empowered to participate actively in society, to advocate for their needs and interest and for those of their organisations and when they are able to improve their own lives.

In 2021, through its annual work plan, MIJARC Europe will focus on the fundamental role young people play in building our network and on supporting them and their organisations to continue to work towards achieving MIJARC Europe’s vision of being a key actor in the development of rural areas in Europe.

The aim of the work plan 2021

The aim is pursued through the following objectives:

  • increase the awareness of the involved young people on the rights that they should be able to enjoy
    in their rural communities
  • increase the ability of young people and of their organisations to claim their rights and to stand up for
    them when their rights are violated
  • motivate and train young people from rural areas in ten different countries to take a more active role
    in the management of their organisation and of MIJARC Europe
  • increase the capacity of MIJARC Europe to transfer knowledge to its member organisations and to
    support them in strengthening their own capacity

The work plan includes 1 local and 2 international activities.

The first phase ”Rural footprints” takes place at local level and consists in a 2-day workshop with a double aim: firstly, to help the member organisations to self-assess their compliance with the CoE’s standard for youth work and quality in non-formal education, and the level of their organisational development; secondly to perform a situational analysis focusing on the barriers experienced by young people and their organisations in accessing their rights at local level. The visits should take place at local level or online, between May-October 2021.

The second phase ”Youth leader path” is a seminar for experienced youth workers, who want to take their competences to the next level and become more engaged in the management of their organisation and of MIJARC Europe. The methodological planning is based on the findings of the local visits and will guide participants towards developing minimum 5 concrete project proposals for improving the access to rights of young people, using a rights-based approach. The seminar is hosted by MRJC in France, between 29 October and 3 November 2021.

The third phase ”Steps to youth worker” is an international training course for entry-level participants, which brings them on the path from participant to youth worker with the purpose of preparing the future generation of youth workers and MIJARC Europe’s European Coordinators. The output of this activity will be an online training programme to be used as an induction training for those who join the executive bodies of MIJARC Europe. The training course is hosted by FYCA in Armenia, in December 2021.

MIJARC Europe is planning to organise the international activities face to face, using a very strict COVID-19 testing or vaccination proof procedure. Keep an eye on the news section for updates.

See you soon!

The third and final activity included in our work plan on 2020, the international summer camp ”Cultivating youth participation” was carried out in a hybrid format, in February 2021, with participants meeting in national groups or connecting exclusively online. In spite of almost one year of continuous uncertainty, endless online meetings and fluctuating periods of hope and fear, the winter camp was a vibrant activity that brought a concrete and significant finality to the activities planned for 2021.

The hybrid winter camp „Cultivating youth participation” was the third activity included in the our work plan „Rock, paper, participation” which is co-funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe, Renovabis and the European Commission.

The winter camp was organised between 20-23 February 2021, after going through a significant risk of not being organised at all. Luckily the new Board members of MIJARC Europe decided to take the risk of postponing the activity for 2021 and made efforts to encourage our member movements to organise residential national groups or select participants to connect online. Our movements from Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia and Romania organised in person events, while the participanta in Belgium, Germany and Malta connected online. A group of 61 registered participants, representing 7 European countries joined the activity. 43 of them attended the winter camp for its entire duration.

The general aim was to increase participants’ knowledge on how to design, plan and manage participatory projects aimed at increasing the level of participation of their peers in decision-making and in policy development about sustainable agriculture at local level. The main tool was the participatory project methodlogy (PPM) proposed in the “Have your say” Manual. The PPM provided the backbone for designing real, concrete projects addresing at least one of the issues related to youth involvement in agriculture that had previously been identified during the local visits.

Almost 90% of the participants declared in the formal evaluation forms their satisfaction and increased motivation to ecourage the participation of their peers in decision-making and in policy development about sustainable agriculture at the local level. More than 80% of the participants felt that the activity had achieved all three of its major objectives, namely:

81% of the participants shared that they have participated and felt included during the activities. One of the factors that made this possible was the local facilitators’ presence and contribution. Another factor was the work in small groups in a virtual environment and instant feedback given by the team of educators and facilitators.

DAY 1

The first day of the activity started with a session in which the participants had the opportunity to get to know each other and the educational team, as well. The second session of the first day aimed to introduce the work done by MIJARC Europe and its member organisations until the moment and give an overview of the previous activities on the local level. The third session was an introductory session for the topics of Youth participation and the Revised European Charter On The Participation Of Young People In Local And Regional Life. As there were participants with different experience and background on youth work and youth empowerment, the session also aimed to ensure that all of the participants are on the same page and have the same understanding of the key concepts of participation and youth work. The participants were introduced to a couple of definitions of youth participation given in the Charter. After discussing and creating the « working definition », the participants were divided into two small groups and introduced to the six-step-model of using the Charter and the RMSOS approach, also provided in the “Have your say!”  manual of the CoE. The fourth session was dedicated to the Participatory Project Methodology. Besides the questions of the participants, additional value to the session came from the first-hand experience and examples shared by the local facilitators and the educational team.

DAY 2

The first session of the second day introduced the Participatory Project Methodology (PPM) framework in details. The session was build based on the information shared on the “Have your say!” manual and T-Kit 3: Project Management of the CoE. The second session was dedicated to sustainable agriculture and youth empowerment, with Janna Herzig, a young expert, presenting two projects: La Bolina (Spain) and Solawi Köln (Germany). By presenting the projects, the expert emphasised the vital role of youth participation in the management and the CSA model as a positive alternative, too. The following two sessions were dedicated to the work of the national groups on creating project proposals and implementing the aspects of the PPM framework.

DAY 3

The third day started with deeper elaborating on the topic of youth participation in the context of sustainable agriculture. The participants had the possibility to learn more about MIJARC Europe’s best practices, policies developed during the years and fruitful partnerships. Next, the participants used the Kent Mcdonald’s Stakeholder Map graphic method, modified according to the project’s specifics and the session. The session helped the teams get a clear idea of their strengths and weaknesses in implementing future participatory projects and their interactions with different stakeholders. The third and fourth sessions were dedicated to sharing expertise and creating project proposals in national group work with the support of an external expert from KLJB Germany. At the end of the third day was the International evening of MIJARC Europe. The virtual cultural event was facilitated in an interactive and fun way by the facilitators. The national groups had to present 10 unknown fun facts about their countries and play their favourite song. At the end of every presentation, there was a time for questions and answers, so the participants could understand more about each country’s culture and traditions.

”It was a nice project! The hybrid method is really challenging and it’s not easy organizing such activity so all of your efforts are very appreciated 🙂 You did a really nice job after all and I’m looking forward to the next projects!!! Love you guys”

participant to the Winter Camp

DAY 4

The winter camp’s last day started with presenting the national groups’ projects proposals. Each group presented their proposals and received feedback with some ideas for implementation. Most of the groups had successfully applied the PPM framework and addressed the issues related to sustainable agriculture that could be beneficial for their societies. The following session was dedicated to a presentation on applying for grant opportunities and finance their project proposals. That session helped the participants increase their knowledge of the actual funding opportunities they can use to finance their project ideas, better understand fundraising at the European level, and be more confident in finding the resources for implementing their projects. The Winter camp ended with an evaluation and planning future steps session. The planning activity aimed to encourage the participants to foresee some possible deadlines, make a calendar with activities, and be more engaged with the two main topics of the Winter camp – Participatory Project Management and Sustainable agriculture.

The main outputs of the hybrid seminar are seven project proposals tackling the problems identified during the local visits and discussed during the Winter camp, including the examples of the experts. All the participants created action plans that are expected to be shared with their boards or executive bodies of the organisations. The resource pack with all the training materials, CoE manuals and detailed information for the EYF, the presentations and the materials as websites of the organisations and their projects, useful links to different institutions and contacts shared by the experts were sent to the participants after the activity. The participants also shared information and media content about the activity on different social platforms.

Main learning outcomes:

  • 100% of the participants indicated they knew the participatory project methodology to a good or to a great extent
  • more than 90% felt they knew how to design a youth participatory project increased knowledge on sustainable agriculture and funding available for youth projects

I think everything was useful for all of us. I am sure that such programs will continue, at least locally. I was most interested in the involvement of young people in youth work, but the other topics were also very useful. Thanks for everything.

participant to the winter camp

Outputs:

Miro Board

Our second international activity of the year was carried out in a hybrid format with participants meeting in national groups or connecting exclusively online to create a diverse, joyful and motivated group of young people who managed to learn from and inspire each other despite the global pandemic.

”The topic is really actual. We have so many things to do to find right solutions. There are really a lot of similar problems connected to agriculture all over the world.”

– participant to the seminar

The hybrid seminar and youth lab „Youth Participating by a hectare” was the second activity included in the our work plan „Rock, paper, participation” which is co-funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe, and the first international youth lab of the #OurFoodOurFuture project, co-funded by the European Commission and Renovabis.

The seminar and youth lab took place between 3-6 December 2020, after it had been postponed from July to September and then postponed again to the end of the year, when the restrictions imposed by the pandemic across Europe, allowed some of the participating counties to organise face to face meetings. In Armenia, Bulgaria and Georgia our local movements were able to meet in national groups for 4 days and connected with their peers from Belgium, Germany, France, Malta and Romania via Zoom. A group of 44 registered participants, representing 8 European countries joined the activity. 37 of them attended the seminar and youth lab for its entire duration.

The general aim was for participants and their organisations to leave the seminar with concrete measures and practices that they could use in order to increase the extent to which young people get involved in agricultural policies at local level. It also focused on a transformation at individual level, as participants were expected to enter the activity as mere consumers and leave as informed people who know the problems and know where to act to contribute to change them.

With the help of many online tools such as Miro, Mentimeter, Genial.ly, Canva and a lot of creativity, the team of facilitators managed to create an effective hybrid educational activity that increased the participants’ knowledge on sustainable agriculture, its processes and activities (35 out of 37 participants) and on the Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life (30 participants).

The most useful thing I learnt was how to use the Charter to engage youth in agricultural policies.

participant to the seminar

The activity started with a warm-up evening during which get-to-know-each-other games, exercises and songs brightened the atmosphere and gave a nice introduction on how the hybrid seminar would be led. The facilitators explained the ground rules, helped the participants who had technical difficulties, clarified their roles and tested all the tools that would be used throughout the seminar. The group was happy to welcome Margit Barna from the European Youth Foundation who played a fun quiz about the EYF and the Council of Europe.

On the second day the participants were introduced into the topic of youth participation, food production and agriculture and started their day with a visit to a virtual museum where the priorities identified in each country during the local visits, within the first phase of the work plan, were displayed. Starting from there the participants went on to mapping the realities in their countries guided by questions such as:

  1. What are the main agricultural productions in your country? Give 3 examples.
  2. Point out 3 biggest problems in agriculture caused by climate change in your country and explain how the governments try to solve those problems. 
  3. What is the role of women and young people in agriculture?

The day ended with an offline guided tour and national work groups in which the participants started writing down priorities in their countries and formulating them as objectives in the National Action Plan template prepared by the team of facilitators on Miro. Last but not least, the evening programme took the participants through an escape room where they had to crack a code by working as a team and performing multiple challenges: such as calming a crying baby, playing memory games, signing songs and impressing a mad clown.

The third day was dedicated to three practical workshops on: soil, animal walfare and water and land grabbing. Each workshop was led either by one of the trainers or a guest speaker and oferred specific information, examples and reflection exercises on each of three topics. The day ended with a participatory workshop during which the participants summarised each topic in a mind map. Then the facilitators conducted a virtual world cafe in order to allow participants to discuss connections among the three workshop topics and a collection of European best practices.

Water talks to me, I speak for water. I didn’t get support and I was called crazy, but I never gave up. What I can always do is to continue with my determination and do whater is possible, whatever you are good at.

Ranjan Panda

The fourth and final day relied on emotions, engagement and inspiration to continue the work and take the results of the hybrid seminar a step further. A spiritual impulse created the perfect start for an imaginative exercise that took participants into the future and invited them to reflect about the seminar. Next, the participants had to prepare a 30-second elevator-pitch to deliver to the Commissioner for Agriculture, whom the meet by chance while taking the elevator to the MIJARc Europe office. Want to see or hear what our participants had to say? Here are their recordings: elevator pitches.

The main outputs of the hybrid seminar are the eight national action plans, focusing on increasing youth participation in agricultural policies and tackling the most stringent needs related to agriculture that the participants identified in their countries. The action plans are the basis for the development of the project proposal during the next international activity – the winter camp “Cultivating youth participation’.

Main learning outcomes:

  • increased knowledge on the Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People at local and regional level
  • increased awareness on the situation of women in agriculture
  • almost 90% of the participants declared that they knew more about sustainable agriculture, food supply chains and about agriculture in the other participant countries as a consequence of having attended the seminar

“I want to discover what offline MIJARC is! I want to travel outside my country to meet you! Online MIJARC seminar was the best you could have done considering the circumstances, big up for the organisation team!

participant to the seminar

Outputs:

Miro Board

Do you know that feeling of fulfilment when you have done something right, something that had impact and brought joy in the hearts of people? Well, that is exactly how we felt after the ”Youth participating by a hectarewebinar.

Ever since our summer activities were postponed and meeting our friends from abroad in person turned into an intention scheduled for ”whenever it will be possible again”, we started toying with the idea of doing something that would still bring us a piece of the excitement and satisfaction our traditional summer seminar did.

Our international webinar ”Youth participating by a hectare” managed to achieve all that and more. Scheduled on the 22nd July, when we had planned to be in France, visiting several local farms and agricultural initiatives, the webinar gathered young people and experts on agriculture who discussed the challenges young people face when it comes to getting involved in this field.

”No race can prosper till it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem

Booker T. Washington

Although it was not initially included as an activity, the international webinar became part of our annual work plan “Rock, Paper, Participation“. The work plan focuses on seeing-judging-acting on how young people get involved in the dialogue on agricultural policies and on how they take part to sustainable agricultural practices.

The Rock, paper, participation” annual work plan is co-funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the European Union.

The webinar gathered more than 60 participants out of the 91 who registered for it. They were all young people from one of the member organisations of MIJARC Europe, representing 8 European countries.

The 3,5 hour agenda was intense but time just flew by once the experts started talking about education and knowledge in the agricultural field, green jobs, agricultural policies and shared their personal stories of getting involved in the field.

Personal story always say something individual and different. They inspires us and give us motivation. If someone made it possible, we can also make it real.

pARTICIPANT TO THE WEBINAR

The webinar looked at agriculture from three perspectives: access to knowledge, information, and education, access to green jobs and engagement in agricultural policies. A study carried out by MIJARC World, FAO and IFA in 2011 revealed several challenges young people faced in the agricultural field and provided solutions for them. Almost ten years later, we wanted to analyse some of the challenges listed in the study, which are relevant for young people in Europe today, and look at them to see if they are still the same or what progress has been made so far.

The webinar was split in four session: an introductory session, two rounds of discussion groups and a common session to draw the conclusions.

Session 1: Access to knowledge, information, and education & access to green jobs

The session began with asking the participants where they learnt about food and agriculture related issues and the poll revealed that most of then had learnt about these by means of their own research.

The first guest speaker was Russ Carrington, a former chairman of Rural Youth Europe, who is currently a farmer practicing regenerative agriculture in the United Kingdom. He joined the call directly from his farm and made a presentation about his life journey. He spoke about why he decided to go back to full-time farming like his parents, after having left to study Civil Engineering to follow a different career. During the Q&A Russ received many questions from the participants. The questions were about whether agriculture and farming is presented in schools as a viable option; about his opinion on the current and future situation of agriculture; about whether he could use his Civil Engineering knowledge in farming; and also about technical issues such as what is meant by sustainable agriculture and what is the role of GMO.

The second guest speaker was Doris Letina, the vice president from CEJA Young Farmers, who is a farmer cultivating apples in Slovenia. She firstly asked the participants to describe ”Green Jobs” in one word using the Mentimeter application.

Some participants were then asked to elaborate on their chosen word, such as “conservation”, “responsibility” and “ethical”. Doris went on to giving a small presentation of what is understood as Green Jobs. Having received some inputs, the participants were then asked the questions: “What are we missing to have Green Jobs?”. This generated some interesting discussions and opinions such as the importance of public awareness, funding and change of societal values. Some participants came back to the importance of access to education, connecting to what was discussed in the first part of the session.

Session 2: Access and engagement of young people in policy dialogue

The session started by defining what is a policy dialogue by asking the participants to choose one picture out of four.

The choice of picture was partly different in the two sessions, but most of the participants chose pictures with young people working together at a table or discussion together. The session had two guest speakers: Jannes Maes, president of CEJA and Daniela Ordowski, board member of MIJARC Europe. Both of them underlined that engagement in policy dialogue is a process. The first step of it is to get organized with other people and define together what is the position shared by everyone and to agree on one message to communicate.

Further, the participants were asked if they had ever taken part in a policy dialogue and to share their experience about it, especially the issues and challenges they had. Some of the participants mentioned that they had never taken part in any dialogue on policies. They had the opinion that if young people do not search actively for such opportunities, they will not have the chance to take part in them. Others said that being in that session was already a step towards being active in policy dialogue. Jannes agreed that sometimes you have to ask for a place and this is not easy, but in general youth are then welcomed, because stakeholders and politicians know that they need the opinion of young people. For established organisations like CEJA or MIJARC Europe it is easier to be involved as an organisation than it is to join the dialogue as an individual. Youth organisations are crucial for the representation of young people.

Conclusions

During the final session, the participants reflected on the discussions they had in the discussion groups and a summary of the main points was made.

Finally a list of priorities identified during the webinar was made and the participants ranked them. The lack of education or its availability only in urban areas was the challenge most of young placed at the top, closely followed by the fact that youth in environmental protection is not a priority for governments these days and the fact the rural areas and farming are not given enough prominence in policies, media and on social networks.

The priorities identified by the participants during the webinar will be collected together with those identified during the local visits in each country and will serve as the basis for the upcoming international activities. During the next phase of the work plan, the participants will develop concrete action plans to address the priorities. The action plans will be the main working tool for the third activity, when participants will create project proposals to help with the implementation of at least one measure included in the action plans.

The webinar was a very successful activity judging by the results of the evaluation form and the testimonials given by the participants.

This webinar was very useful. Before this I didn’t even know that people like you are actually trying to solve problems like this one, the involvement of young people into agriculture and the development of rural spaces. The most useful thing that I have learnt is that with topics like this, there is still hope from the younger generations and I think that I have actually found some inspiration to speak out on what I want to say something, because until now I was too shy and I didn’t think that people really want to hear what someone like me would want to say.

Participant

On a personal level, I could relate my own education and life with the experiences that one of the speakers talked about. He inspired me to use most of the engineering and problem-solving capabilities to get involved in sustainable agriculture.

Participant

On 4th June 2020, our member organisation APSD-Agenda 21 from Romania organised the third local visit planned among the activities of MIJARC Europe’s annual work plan “Rock, Paper, Participation“. The work plan focuses on seeing-judging-acting on how young people get involved in the dialogue on agricultural policies and on how they take part to sustainable agricultural practices.

The Rock, paper, participation” annual work plan is co-funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the European Union.

Following the introduction of the lockdown measures of the COVID-19 pandemic across almost all European countries, several of MIJARC Europe’s member organisations decided to organise the local visits as national webinars. The team of MIJARC Europe designed a webinar format based on online tools and assisted the member organisation in implementing their activities online in line with the objective of the work plan. APSD-Agenda 21 was the first member organisation that hosted a national webinar instead of a local visit to a farm, but the event was useful, effective and well received by the participants.

Organising the event online as a webinar gave the advantage of having more than 12 participants and making it a national rather than a local event. APSD-Agenda 21 spread the call in its national network and finally 66 participants from five counties in Romania attended the webinar.

The webinar was led on Zoom and included a balanced mix of theoretical input and practical exercises that made the activity dynamic and interesting for the participants. First, they got the chance to know each other better through a set of four questions that invited them raise there hand if during the lockdown period that had:

  • taken part to a challenge on social media
  • listened to a podcast
  • baked something for the first time
  • attended online meetings while still wearing their pyjamas

The next block on the agenda was dedicated to agriculture and aimed at bringing the young participants closer to agricultural practices and to understanding how agriculture is done in their country and in Europe. Based on the study on youth involvement in agriculture that MIJARC Europe published specially for this visit, the participants found out that:

  • 56% of the EU citizens live in rural areas;
  • there are almost 12 million farmers in the EU, with only 29% of the farmer owners being women and only 5% being young than 35 years old;
  • Romania is the largest producer of sunflower in the EU;
  • 33% of Romania’s active population work in the agricultural sector.

After the general introduction to the topic of agriculture, the participants had the chance to discuss with one of the leading experts on agriculture in Romania, Mr. Vînătoru Costel – head of the plant gene bank in Buzau and horticulture engineer at the Plant Research and Development Station in Buzau-Romania. The discussion focused on practices used in sustainable agriculture, the phases a product goes through from the moment it is just a seed to the moment we can consume it, several projects of the research station, the expert personal motivation to study agricultural and work in the field, the Common Agricultural policy and who implements it in Romania, ways to involve young people in agriculture and the main problems farmers face in Romania.

The second part of the meeting focused on youth involvement in policies and especially in agricultural policies. While the participants had some idea about what a policy is, almost none of them had ever been involved in a structured dialogue process ir was aware of how young people could influence a policy.

Next, the participants explored the Common Agricultural Policy and the way it is implemented in Romania and were introduced to the Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life (the Charter) They went through the six-step implementation model, the principles of the Charter, the ladder of participation and the RMSOS approach and were very pleased to see that there was an instrument that could guide them towards getting involved in policies at local and regional level.

Revised Charter

The evaluation session revealed the fact that the participants found the webinar very useful and interesting and discovered a multitude of tools they could use to get involved.

On 14th March 2020, our member organisation Umbrella from Georgia organised the second local visit planned among the activities of MIJARC Europe’s annual work plan “Rock, Paper, Participation“. The work plan focuses on seeing-judging-acting on how young people get involved in the dialogue on agricultural policies and on how they take part to sustainable agricultural practices.

The Rock, paper, participation” annual work plan is co-funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the European Union.

Umbrella gathered 13 of their young members and took them on a visit to Asureti Village and to Tetritskaro Youth Center. Firstly, they visited a farm and a greenhouses that belonged to the young farmer Gocha Apciauri, located in Asureti village. He presented his farm, the technologies he used and engaged he participants in an experiential learning activity inviting them to harvest vegetables. The discussion with the farmers focused on the challenges that he faced in his daily live as a farmer and the agricultural works.

The second half of the day was spent at Tetritskaro Youth Center, where the participants explored the “ladder of Participation”, the “triangle of cooperation”, worked in groups and used non-formal learning methods to identify challenges/barriers young people face if they want to get involved in the dialogue on agricultural policies.

They based their work on the study on youth involvement in agriculture – the case of Georgia – published by MIJARC Europe especially for this visit and the Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life (the Charter)

Revised Charter

According to participants their involvement in agricultural policy at local level is extremely low. They were not aware of the possibilities and mechanisms of participation in decision-making process at local level. None of them had ever taken part in discussions on farming issue or had been invited to the local Sakrebulo (local legislative body) meetings. In addition to this, despite the fact that representatives of two local municipalities (Tetrsitskaro and Marneuli) were invited to the meeting, none of them sent representatives.

The young participants decided that the priorities they should focus on at local level should be:

  • Information – access to information is the top priority as quite often the information is on websites but it is not proactively published or spread in the municipality. It also considers the accessibility to internet as it is not developed in rural area.
  • Motivation – low level of motivation or nihilism among youth and non-responsive local authorities. The priority is to raise the level of motivation among young people.
  • Language barrier – in the communities with ethnic minorities (Armenians, Azerbaijanis) in some cases they face language barriers as they lack of knowledge of state language. Translation of information into native languages.
  • Political will – promoting (advocating) political will among local authorities and awareness about the positive sides of involvement of young farmers in agricultural policy development process.


On 7th March 2020, our member organisation Federation of Youth Clubs of Armenia (FYCA), organised the first local visit planned within the activities of MIJARC Europe’s annual work plan “Rock, Paper, Participation“. The work plan focuses on seeing-judging-acting on how young people get involved in the dialogue on agricultural policies and on how they take part to sustainable agricultural practices.

The Rock, paper, participation” annual work plan is co-funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the European Union.

FYCA took the young participants to visit several agricultural farms in Nor Geghi (Kotayk province), Armenia.

The visits started with several meetings with local youth representatives and local & regional authorities. At first, the attendees discussed the current situation and existing challenges facing the youth in the region and explored the facts and issues raised by the study on youth involvement in agriculture done by MIJARC Europe.

Later, it was time to start the meetings with the farmers located in the region. The local visit to several agricultural farms in Armenia gathered 25 young volunteers and members from the organization, and also representatives from local and regional authorities from Kotayk province, Armenia.

Prior to the visit, the organization contacted the provincial administration representatives of Kotayk region through FYCA regional coordinator, Mari Hovakimyan. The visit was co-organized by the head of Nor Geghi community, Vardan Papyan and his administrative team.

The field visit started from “Green” intensive apple orchards, where farmers’ staff presented the basics of the fruit cultivation. The participants explored all the stages of producing apples: starting from the basic steps of orchard establishment and development to packing the ready-steady fruits for consumption. The apple orchards have been established in Nor Geghi community in 2016 and currently cover nearly 30 hectares, with the goal of expanding the area by 20 hectares in the nearest future. In addition to apple trees, pear, plum and cherry trees will also be planted there.

It is also interesting to know that the intensive orchards are harvested earlier than traditional orchards. In case of intensive orchards, up to ten times more seedlings are planted on 1 hectare of land. The farm grows a huge variety of apples and each of them is different in its own way.

Having explored the techniques and logistics of the production, it was time to carry out the second visit in the region. The next farm was a fishpond, belonging to “Ninel” LLC and providing employment opportunities to locals.

Afterwards, the team headed to the third well-known farm, “Lusakert” poultry factory. During the visit, the team got acquainted with the bird breeding conditions and technical equipment of the cultivation. As the factory staff informed, the chickens are kept in exclusively natural and ecological conditions, thus providing ecologically pure and nutritious products.

Revised Charter

The information gained during the visits were later on used to discuss about how young people could get involved in agricultural policies and firstly if they should get involved. The participants explored the Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life (the Charter) and its six step implementation model. The participants came to the conclusion that agricultural development is crucially important for developing rural areas. Hence, the strategies and policies promoting the development of rural areas are considered to be a high priority in the country.

In order to reach sustainable agricultural development, it is necessary to provide rural youth with sufficient access to knowledge and information, through incorporating agricultural skills in the education.
According to the discussions, it became obvious that youth’s involvement in policy dialogue is still an existing challenge in the country. Thus, young people need to have access to integrated trainings in agricultural sector and get coherent response from policy-makers and development practitioners so as to overcome those challenges.


Overall, the following conclusion was drawn in result of the local visit: agricultural development is an extremely important asset for fostering sustainable development of rural communities’ livelihood and increasing the standards of living in those areas.

”Rock, paper, participation” – an annual work plan co-funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the European Union.


In 2020 MIJARC Europe will focus on seeing-judging-acting on how young people get involved in the dialogue on agricultural policies and on how they take part to sustainable agricultural practices.

Following the successful implementation of the work plan on citizenship and participation in 2019, MIJARC Europe has chosen to go deeper into the topic and build on the great results it has achieved so far, by focusing on increasing youth participation in building a sustainable future for agriculture and for rural communities. Agriculture is a key topic of MIJARC Europe and a strategic area of intervention when it comes to youth participation. Rural development and a prosperous, sustainable future for young people in rural areas are interlinked to agriculture. In 2017 official data revealed that Europe’s farming sector was dominated by an older population, especially in the case of women farmers – data showed that just 4.9% of farmers under 35 were women, compared to 6.4% for men. Even less were engaged in policy dialogue. We need to get young people from rural areas back at the dialogue table, we need to provide them with the skills and insight needed to understand what sustainable agriculture is and to give them a strong, informed and evidence-based voice in agricultural policies.

Listen to 32nd episode of our podcast “How about you(th)” to find out more about what sustainability means for agriculture.

Through this work plan we strive to provide the rural young people in the MIJARC Europe network with the values, attitudes, skills, knowledge and critical understanding required for meaningful participation and effective engagement in decision-making and policy development about sustainable agriculture.

We plan to achieve this aim by engaging the young people in a learning process which is based on the principles and instruments of the Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life and the methodology of youth participatory projects described in the ‘Have your say’ manual.

The three phases of the work plan bring young people closer to farmers, sustainable agriculture initiatives and agricultural policies and uses a bottom-up approach. During the local visits/national webinars young people focus on the priorities they feel should be pursued in their community in order to increase young people’s involvement in agriculture, while the seminar and the summer camp teach them to understand and work on agricultural policies and to develop concrete projects at community level to address the priorities identified.

The local visits are planned to take plan between March-May 2020 but following the mobility restrictions imposed by the current global pandemic, the local visits will be organised as webinars.

The seminar and the summer camp are postpone to autumn 2020 with updates to be published at the beginning of August 2020.

 

”Let our voice be heard” – an annual work plan co-funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.


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Between 2018 and 2021 MIJARC Europe is leading its work around three thematic focus points described in the Specific Objectives adopted by the General Assembly back in 2017. The work plan we run in 2019 addressed MIJARC Europe’s commitment to support citizenship and youth participation in rural development.

Through the work plan we run in 2019 we aimed to help rural young people in MIJARC Europe network and beyond feel that they have the right, the means and the skills to drive change at local level and to motive other stakeholders to support their ideas and create opportunities for youth participation together.

We wanted young people to feel that they know, they can, and they want to be involved, to be able to imagine the concrete, sequential steps towards achieving real impact and to identify how to determine local authorities to join their initiatives in order to see those changes they envision, happen in reality.

This aim was pursued through the following specific objectives:

O1: enable young people from rural areas to discriminate between self-imposed barriers to participation (their own perceptions, stereotypes and attitudes) and real barriers and find inspiration to identify solutions to both types of barriers;

O2: teach young people how to communicate with, involve and ask for support from local authorities and perceive them as partners rather than opponents;

O3: empower young people from rural areas to become competent and effective digital citizens;

O4: contribute to the implementation of the principles of the Revised Charter on participation of young people in local and regional life and to the dissemination of the “Have your say manual” to local public authorities and youth NGOs in at least 10 rural areas in Europe.

PHASES

The work plan included one local activity and two international activities, reinforced by follow- up activities at local level.

From February to April 2019, MIJARC Europe organized focus groups, called “local visits” in 9 different countries in Europe. Small groups of 10 to 20 people aged from 12 to 22 years old came together, sometimes also with representatives of local authorities, to discuss the topic of youth participation.

Questions like “what does youth participation mean?”, “what kind of youth participation does take place?”, “does real participation take place?”, “how young people are involved, do they have a real chance to participate and co-decide?” have been deeply discussed with the help of the manual “Have your Say”. The manual Have your Say is a tool of the Council of Europe for young people and local authorities to implement and use the Charter on youth participation in the local and regional life. The findings of the local visits were included in a report and illustrated in country fact sheets. The results of this small scale research were at the basis of the next two phases.

Report on the state of youth participation – local visits

Info graphics – country fact sheets

The second activity was an international seminar, which gathered 40 young people, for four full working days.  It had the role to bridge the results of the fieldwork done by MIJARC Europe during the local visits with the theoretical and practical aspects of the participation at local, national, regional and European lever by involving active members in a proactive learning process.

The seminar was designed and led based on the methods of non-formal education and relevant approaches using the Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in local and regional life and the “Have your say” Manual. The successful implementation of the seminar resulted in a magazine of personal stories of participation written and drawn by the participants, the creation of vlogs and of three infographics.  The final evaluation results show that the seminar scored high in the hearts and minds of the participants. The percentage of those who believe that they got the basic theory, practical approaches and tools, to help them to build a culture of participation after the seminar is about 92%.

Digital magazine “My story of participation” 

Vlogs – https://www.youtube.com/user/MIJARCEurope/videos

Info-graphics 

 

The seminar was complemented by the third phase, an international training course on e- citizenship that offered additional tools and ideas to tackle the problems identified in the first phase. The training course aimed to bring the participants closer to e-participation. The participants were encouraged to build their own positions for different topics related to participation and e-participation and they had a possibility to present and discuss in a safe learning environment.

They had a possibility to address their comments and questions to Dirk Van Eeckhout, the Thematic Coordinator on Information Policy in the Council of Europe and Rita Jonusaite, part of the secretariat of the YFJ. That was a highly valuable experience that helped the participants to meet stakeholders, gain self-confidence and resilience breaking the present barriers. The participants worked together in intercultural subgroups in order to solve practical case studies through the e-participation tools they have discovered.

 

The most impressive result of the training course was the set up of an online campaign “Every Breath we take” the participants used to raise awareness on the fires in the Amazon and climate injustice. The campaign worked as a Facebook challenge in which young people were challenged to take a photo of themselves with their eyes closed, taking a deep breath along with the written message: “Our common home is on fire. The Amazon is burning. We cannot hold our breath until you finally take action. We need to act NOW!”. It also included four calls to action and messages inspired by the position papers of MIJARC Europe such as: “We demand national governments to take concrete actions to meet their commitments to the Paris agreement”. The campaign gathered more than 100 people who took a photo of themselves, posted the photo along with the message on their Facebook profile and challenged their friends

Every breath we take campaign

Training booklet on e-participation

Finally, each organization involved did a follow-up activity of their choice, involving a minimum number of 10 participants. The full list of follow-up activities can be seen here.

Follow-up activity in Bulgaria

Follow-up activity in Germany

Follow-up activity in Romania

The results of the work plan were also presented and promoted in our biannual magazine: MIJARC Explore.

logosbeneficaireserasmusleft_enBetween 4th – 8th September 2018, our member movement APSD-Agenda 21 is hosting a youth exchange on peace and conflict. The project is called “Messages from the future” and it is part of our annual work plan on 2018 “We are the others”. The youth exchange is co-financed by the ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Union. It is organized as an international simulation on four different topics which affect peace and conflict at global level: climate change, migration, gender inequality and extremism.


The final day of our youth exchange brought to our attention the topic of extremism with the help of a very interesting game and many balloons. The team of facilitators adapted ”The Island” simulation from the All Different, All Equal Education Pack in order to show that differences should be first acknowledged and then accepted, that tolerance and adaptability are key skills and that diversity should be celebrated.

Split into two different tribes, both worshiping balloons the participants took their roles seriously and started looking for a very rare type of balloon which could only be found with a special map. Of course each tribe possessed only half of the map and only by coming together and mending the two halves could the tribes find the balloons. The negotiations were tough and the members of the tribes had to learn the other’s culture in order to be able to communicate with them.

In the debriefing part they talked about how important it had been to stay open and to adapt to the situation by learning the language of the other tribe, sharing their habits and not using violent methods. They discussed about culture, what makes it important and about what brings the cultures into conflict. They reflected on who gains and who loses from a conflict and about the negative and positive consequences of opening up towards other cultures.

Next, the tribes prepared the photo-messages with their most important conclusion.

The day ended with a long evaluation and follow-up session, in which the participants reflected on their learning, filled-in their youth passes and discovered what competences they had developed throughout the week. They also made plans for hosting the travelling exhibition and found out who their secret friend had been.

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