Safebook for Safe Youth
During 2023-2024 Club for Youth Empowerment 018 (KOM018), Serbia has been implementing KA2 CBY project “Safebook for Safe Youth”, in cooperation with Beyond Borders – Italy, “Idea for Life” – Poland, “Youth Center Perspektiva” – Albania, “Red Cross Novo Sarajevo” – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jordan, “Youth Innovation Forum” – Jordan and “Euro-Med EVE” – Tunisia. “Youth Center Perspektiva” was part of this project as a partner.
The aim of this project is promoting the safety culture among young people through newly developed manual “Safebook” for youth work in the field of youth safety. The manual was produced through Strategic partnership in the field of youth in 2021 by the applicant “Club for Youth Empowerment 018” (KOM 018) together with Beyond Border – Italy, and partners from Croatia and North Macedonia and is recognized as a good practice project by Erasmus+ Program.
“Safebook” manual includes new and innovative methodologies and creative tools in the form of youth friendly manual for youth workers. Newly developed manual focuses on 5 segments of youth safety: peer violence, cyberbullying, abuse of psychoactive substances, discrimination and mental health in time of COVID-19.
The project is being implemented in the period 01.01.2023-31.12.2024 and is co-financed by European Union.
7 countries were part of this project, such as: Serbia, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jordania, Tunisia and Albania.
The project contains several different activities until the end of the project. The first activity of the project was kick-off meeting, when the project team was there to do planning and implementation plan of the project. The kick-off meeting was organized in March 2023 and was held in Amman, Jordan.
The seminar, held in Italy, focused on “Research on Safety for Safe Youth” it provided an exploration into different aspects of youth safety through an approach divided into five key segments: peer violence, cyberbullying, abuse of psychoactive substances, discrimination, mental health in COVID-19.
Participants from six countries gathered to be part of this seminar. The sessions were designed to equip participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct research in these segments. Each team was tasked with conducting a research for each of the segments and organizing 5 focus groups for each segments.
As a follow-up, participants were required to conduct a survey to assess the impact and effectiveness of 5 segments, ensuring that the research and educational activities had practical applications and contributed to a broader understanding of youth safety issues.
During the project is realised a Desk Research and the findings are going to be published as a “Safebook” manual – which was about Exploring and taking stock of existing good practices and tools of media literacy in the Partnership countries, as well as providing a literature review as a resource for later use in European youth work.
Each participating country organized five focus groups as one-day events with local youth, each focusing on one of the segments discussed in the seminar where they practiced their gained skills. The Albanian team held their workshop in Elbasan, addressing the topics of peer violence, cyberbullying, abuse of psychoactive substances, discrimination, and mental health during COVID-19. Following the completion of all workshops, a survey was organized online to gather insights from the youth about these five critical issues. This survey aimed to enhance the understanding of the situation in Albania, as well as in other participating countries, by providing valuable data for further research and analysis.
The other activity was a training course under the same topic “Safebook for safe youth”, which was held in Nis, Serbia, from 30.10.2024 – 06.11.2023. 5 participants from Albania were part of this traning course. Training course brought together youth workers, educators, activists to adopt new methodologies regarding the above mentioned safety segments and to explore concept photo and concept graphics as methods in youth work in youth safety related project. There were 32 participants-youth workers, trainers and organizers.
The Participants also worked on creating the online campaign and planning follow up activities.
The next activity was Local workshops. Participants of the training organized 1 Info Day and local workshops where they tested the new methods with local youth and developed concept tools for the promotion of safety culture among young people. The local activities were based on the methodology of the international training. The main topic of the workshops was a test of the “Safebook” manual on the local levels and working on the 5 segments.
Albanian team held their workshops in Klos, Tirana.
During the project, an online campaign has been active while “Youth Center Perspektiva” has been posting updates regarding the activities that the participants were organizing.
Then, we started an online campaign using social media channels to promote the research data, to produce relevant posters and informations with higher outreach and to initiate an online discourse among the audience.
The last activity will be Final Conference. In this activity we will conclud the whole project implementation, evaluation of the achieved results, and creating a higher dissemination of results and establishing a stronger network among partners for the future initiatives.
Based on participant’s opinion regarding participating in this project, it was a meaningful experience, since everyone gained a lot of informations and skill and of course, visiting other countries and exchanging cultures it is a great opportunity
