“Raising the capacities of youth NGOs for rural youth participation in democratic life – VOTE!” project aimed to raise the capacities of youth NGOs working with rural youth to encourage youth active participation in European democratic life and elections. We believe that active youth participation and in particular rural youth political participation can be an added value for the development of our countries and communities. For this reason, the consortium from 14 organizations representing different European countries decided to develop a long-term cooperation project on capacity building of rural youth political participation. The project aimed to contribute to the capacity building of youth workers from civil society organizations, particularly the ones working with rural youth and public authorities at the local and regional levels to be able to increase the level of youth democratic participation. At the same time that focus also on the capacity building of youth leaders from local rural communities. In order to reach our project aims we had defined the following specific objectives: a) To increase the capacity of NGOs working with rural youth to influence policy at local, regional, national and European levels;b) To empower local organizations staff to better involve young people in the decision-making process of their projects and activities;c) To increase the political influence of young people in their communities by active participation in the processes of political elections;d) To improve local and national youth policies and the competencies of local stakeholders to work together (cross-sectorial initiatives) and with rural youth in developing new projects;e) To develop instruments that can support youth NGOs that need to start working with rural youth;f) To raise the level of awareness within the communities in Europe about the impact of the young generation, particularly addressing rural youth;On the local level, the project had a significant impact with the implementation of training courses, local youth initiatives and development of the action plans for raising the capacities of rural youth.The priorities this project addressed:- Promoting the take-up of practical experiences in education, training and youth work in rural areas;- Supporting the production and adoption of Open Educational Resources in diverse European languages on youth political participation (elections on local, national, European levels);- Stimulating active participation of young people in democratic life in their communities, supporting their local initiatives and active participation in elections.

The “4Ps for Youth: Public, Popular, Progressive and Productive” project was built on the methodology of non – formal education taking into account the needs and motivations of the consortium members as the starting point of the programme. This project was designed as an open learning process based on active and collaborative learning, on sharing experience and ideas, on implementing the gained knowledge in practice and on involving all participants in decision making based on consent to achieve the best results.This Project aim was to bring together young people from different partner organizations for the promotion of their aims and achievements and empowering them with the skills of Public Relations and Communication in youth work to recognize that they can be active agents of change, to build constructive relations with their partners and target audience; to make their organisations and daily work public, popular, progressive and productive.The entire project had 4 activity stages: we met in Italy for a contact-making and preparatory meeting, where we had an opportunity to discuss the issues we have, the expectations we have from the project, and design the upcoming stages of the project. The next stage was a training course in Germany. Members of the participating organisations were trained on the communications and public relations topic, gained new skills, discussed with the experts the issues they face in their countries. At the end of the TC, all the organisations had a draft plan for local awareness-raising campaigns. During the TC several visits to Communications museum and organisations were implemented as well. After the TC, it was the time to implement the draft plans in practice. The organisations had to evaluate their work, find out the objectives and goals and promote their work and organisations. For that each and every organisation designed their own information and awareness-raising campaigns. Only the promotion of the project was with the same style. The final activity stage was the evaluation meeting in Armenia, to evaluate all the stages of the project, to find out the outcomes, and to think about future steps. The objectives of the project were:A) To strengthen awareness and understanding of the significant role of Public relations and communication. B) To increase participants’ knowledge in the field of media related to the process of constructing reality and develop a more critical and selective approach towards media, social media among representatives of youth organizations; C) To improve knowledge of participants how to work successfully with media and how to promote NGOs and the “Erasmus +” programme;D) To enhance participants’ knowledge of the Erasmus+ Programme and its Key Actions and to encourage the development of new project ideas and initiatives under this Programme.E) To inform participants on how to produce press releases that are used and how to prepare successful press conferences.F) To equip participants with the different types of communication tools; introduce them to the diverse types of media and its specific requirements (e.g. how journalists work and what they need).G) To strengthen participants’ competences as youth workers/leaders to use media tools at their professional work and acknowledge the ways media and digital tools can be used for addressing diverse societal issues more effectively;H) To provide participants an opportunity to share good practices, as well to reflect on common challenges in the field of community and youth work and strengthen the existing networks, including obtaining new contacts for further cooperation in the youth field;I) To give participants an opportunity to realize the gained knowledge and developed tools/techniques in their communities;J) To create Manual and online animated book with concrete instructions and working methods for practical implementation for everyday work.