"Youth work is a progressive field that provide space and opportunities for young people to shape their own future and has veryimportant role of encouraging young people to take responsibility for others and get engaged and involved in shaping societybeyond more individual interests. Youth sector employs many people working as full time, part-time, periodical/seasonal workers oron voluntary basis. In Europe, we only find a few countries with well-established youth work policies and structures governed bypublic authorities with paid youth workers, developed vocational training, and higher education curricula for youth workers. Youth Work in Europe started to develop intensively in last decades mainly through civil society organisation. Up to now, civil society organisations kept its position as the main providers of Youth Work. With the increasing number and scope of Youth Work projects, the need for professionalism, standardisation, and quality assurance work within the CSOs became a need. This created a demand for professional youth workers and related studies at the Universities. Considering the most recent report of the European Commission about the Youth Work it confirms the gap on the formalrecognition of the Youth Worker as a salaried or volunteer basis, there’s no existing census even of youth workers across Europe. Thisreport shows us that is not even comparable in terms of numbers due to various definitions of the youth workers. For example asalaried worker involved in the youth work sector are at least 1 230 000 across the EU and on the other hand the number ofvolunteers is even more difficult to estimate given the lack of official figures gathered at the national level however out of 9 EUcountries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland and the UK) there’s an estimated of 1 370 000volunteer youth workers (Report of the EC on “Working with young people: the value of youth work in the European Union”. P. 113,201).Is in the name of this context that the Project will produce special products and initiatives to support the establishing a youth work studies that combine best practices of the theoretical studies about youth sector and similar subjects on one hand and grass-root and policy work undertaken by the CSOs as a complementary ""supplement"". As a result we will have a completely evidence based developed curricula and clear plan how to implement it from 2016 in the University of Istanbul as part of Pilot Project. We expect to have a pilot with at least 10 students for the year 2016-17 where the fisrt semester will be dedicated to theoretical knowledge and second semester for the practical work in CSOs. Advocating for greater recognition of youth worker as a profession on European level in order to increase quality in youth work, mobility of youth workers and achievements of the sector in generally is idea behind this project and innovative elements are related to the involvement of Universities who are usually not familiar with youth sector and its practices. The cross-sectoral evidence in this project will also bring other expertise, experiences and dimensions that we believe will bringsteps further on the recognition of youth worker as profession creating - consequently - impact on the labor market. The target groups of this project will be Youth Workers, Policy Makers and Youth organizations and Universities all of them benefiting from innovative practices the project will bring."

‘Social entrepreneurship in-migration - Enhancing employability and innovation amongst young refugees’ was a 12 month strategic partnership between organisations from Germany, Belgium and Croatia on the topic of promotion of entrepreneurship education in working with young migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The strategic partnership is a result of previous collaboration of the partner organisations, which noticed the need to develop strategic tools and motivate youth organisations to explore social entrepreneurship as a tool for integration of displaced young people and provide youth entrepreneurship support by further expanding on this topic. The project had the following set of objectives: - To build capacities of youth workers to be able to provide quality youth work programmes on (social) entrepreneurial education with the aim to support the creation, improvement and wider dissemination of support schemes for migrant entrepreneurs; - To reflect on the needed competences of youth workers to act as motivators of youth for entrepreneurship and social integration and to motivate their lifelong learning competences to improve in this area; - To develop and try out specific tools for youth work as examples of non-formal learning in entrepreneurial education; - To develop participants’ understanding and knowledge of (social) entrepreneurship and its link to youth work systems and discuss their applicability in different contexts; - To exchange good practices not only in youth work between youth workers and their associations from the 3 participating countries but also at European level; The project produced 2 outputs [a Guidebook for mentoring youth entrepreneurship in working with displaced youngsters and a Training toolkit on entrepreneurship for youth work organisations], 3 multipliers events related to the development and promotion of this outputs and 1 learning activity. Its main result within the youth field is enhanced perspectives in implementing entrepreneurship education in working with young people with migrant backgrounds and over 130 youth workers involved.We believe that Social entrepreneurship has the potential to contribute to migrant integration. On the other hand, the importance of migration in developing a competitive and sustainable European economy is recognised by both the Europe 2020 Strategy and the Stockholm programme. This project was based on the notion that the youth field plays a vital role in increasing the resources and understanding within the migrant and refugee sectors about these topics. By opening the space for the development of entrepreneurial and innovative spirit among the displaced youth, we are offering a plethora of opportunities to explore the interplay between these ideas and highlight outstanding projects and initiatives across these sectors. Finally, this project aimed at showing the potential of social entrepreneurship to positively impact the human rights space, respect for which is one of the core values of the EU.

Project: Empowering youth for decent work was addressing the current challenges young people are facing at the labour market. It was focusing on young unemployed people, youth who are working in short term, unstable and precarious conditions and at young people who were already employed. Through the partnership established among different organisations addressing these topics, the project offered a space and opportunities to share knowledge, practices and approaches working with youth. We created new and innovative models addressing young people in order to bring those topics to them and to other actors in this field, with the aim to empower them in the transition from education to the labour market. The aim of the project was to empower youth in this transition and enable them in knowing the rights they have, when they are unemployed, in precarious work or in employment. Within the project, we compared the situation of young people living in Slovenia and in Spain, where the consequences of youth unemployment and precarious have been very notable and address this with correlation to European policies influencing labour market and legislations. We made a research on the situation of young people in this transition and challenges they are facing. We also checked how well they are aware of the topics, how good they are in knowing their rights, while unemployed, in different forms of work and in employment, what are the measures that can help them and who are the actors in this field. We also checked how well they are aware of possibilities to connect and act on this matter and what actions can they take. This was done by making a researches that included also a questionnaire filled by young people, in order to gather young people’s opinion and their views on the matter. Collected results were gathered and together with the statistical data and other information we published a research that presented the situation of young people and their view of the situation. Based on this we developed an education module to empower them on this field and organise a national seminars (In slovenia and in Spain) for young people and youth workers. We also developed and implemented informative and educational online campaign striving to present these topics in a youth friendly way and empower young people with knowledge and information for facing these challenges, present them the rights they have and actions they can take. The results of the project, outcomes and conclusions were also shared to other actors in this field (such as policy makers, other youth organisations, trade unions, public employment services, etc.) at the national level, where we organised seminars and at the international closing conference. With this we built bridges among young people and other stakeholders who are working on these topics. The main target groups were young people and those stakeholders. Youth in these situations (unemployed and precarious workers) are at the risk of social exclusion or are already social excluded. This situation does not only affect their economic situation, but also does not provide them with adequate social and legal protection. Therefore, with the project we also wanted to empower them to stand for their rights, to take actions, to become active citizens, contribute in addressing those topics and to increase their participation in democratic life. We also wanted to motivate them to take part in youth organisations, or other organisations. We also want to strengthen their belief in taking the initiatives and to become engaged at local, national or European level, to collaborate and be connected and share their views and express their opinion. Project also aimed to raise awareness among broader public at national and European level about the precarious work and on the importance of decent work and propose action and measures for developing policies that assure decent work for young people. Therefore, the project included various actors from this field that gain new knowledge about the situation of young people, their views and their needs. additionally we also organised a press conference (In Slovenia) where we presented the results of the projects, research and disseminate the outcome in order to make project visible and to showcase the situation young people are facing. This also helped in achieving the results of the training. Through established partnership among organisations end exchanging practices, views and approaches, developing new methods and educational activities, we also strengthen capacities of included organisations and contribute to development of youth work. Partners organisations really connected during the project and we are still continuing the cooperation after the project.

The project ‘Social Entrepreneurship in Youth Work - Developing employability and innovations amongst the youth people’ was an 18-month strategic partnership established among organisations from Malta, Belgium and Greece with the aim to engage in the promotion of entrepreneurship education in youth work. This strategic partnership emerged as a result of previous collaboration of the partner organizations, which recognized the need to develop strategic tools and motivate youth organizations to provide youth (social) entrepreneurship support and further contribute to this topic.The partnership brought together: Gozo Youth Council - one of the biggest youth work providers in Malta with experience in working on youth unemployment and supporting young people’s integration in society, the Institute for Entrepreneurship Development - a Greek organisation committed to the promotion of innovation and enhancing the spirit of entrepreneurship, and finally OTB International - a Belgium association providing mainly international youth work training and development, which offered a different perspective from the policy side and the side of the European level youth field. The project addressed the following set of objectives: - To build capacities of youth workers which enable them to provide quality youth work programmes on entrepreneurial education and social entrepreneurship;- To reflect on the competences necessary for youth workers to act as motivators both of youth (social) entrepreneurship and the improvement of lifelong learning competences of youth in this area;- To develop and test specific youth work tools as examples of non-formal learning in entrepreneurial education;- To develop participants’ understanding and knowledge of (social) entrepreneurship and its links to youth work systems and to discuss their applicability in different contexts;- To exchange good practices in youth work among youth workers and their associations from the 3 participating countries, but also at European level.The project produced 2 outputs (Mentorship Guideline for Mentoring Youth Entrepreneurship and Training kit on entrepreneurship for youth work organizations), yielded 3 multipliers events related to the development and promotion of these outputs and implemented 1 learning activity with the aim of building the capacities of youth workers to act as motivators of social entrepreneurship among youth in their local realities. As the main result, the project involved 116 young people, youth workers, activists and volunteers, in order to enhance the youth field with perspectives in implementing entrepreneurship education in youth work.

"Alter-narration provided young people and youth workers with a unique opportunity to be change-makers. The digital resources and materials platform stands to be the only one of its type across Europe that has combating hate speech and violent radicalisation training and development agendas and youth engagement interwoven within the fabric of the initiative. Alter-narration is premium example of action learning involving a multitude of new skills for participants. The premise of Alter-narration was to empower young people within different geographical regions to conduct capacity building via digital means that relate to their existence in the EU youth policy. The aim of the project was also to inform and inspire positive action of young people in combating hate speech and radicalisation. Also, we have raised an awareness of the subject matters addressed to a wider audience, such as policy makers, similar organisations and/or business community. Social media and Internet have given free access to recruit young people to extreme ideologies that increasingly leads to violent behavior. The main aim of Alter-narration was to increase capacity of youth organisations and youth workers to combat hate speech and violent radicalisation in online spaces by developing methodological approaches and tools that will support their work in inspiring young people to create positive and alternative content online. Essentially, we did empower youth workers and their organisation, and ultimately young people, with outputs and events as part of this project. The journey of the project and the findings will live on a newly created dedicated digital platform. The platform provides a 360 insight to each partners work, sharing not only the findings but also the methodology used. Rather than your typical research or educational resource report, the findings are shared in the format of dynamic and engaging multimedia online content consisting of animation, photography, video and audio. This project related to the premise that youth organisations and youth workers are being asked to deliver more work with less resources in many EU countries and so a proven and trusted resource platform is required and needed across Europe. The lack opportunities to participate actively to combat hate speech and violent radicalisation in online spaces as well as opportunities to positively design relevant digital materials and resources were addressed through the project. The concept is the creation of a digital tools emerge created relevant and timely materials for youth workers. This will lead to professional multimedia content and resources to engage and enlighten a wider audience of young people and their peers as well as youth workers and organisations within their regions. Our main outputs were: - Study: ""Radicalisation in Online sphere- forms and prevention practices""; - Handbook: Developing Alternative Narratives Through Youth Work; - Digital Stories: Videos of Personal Stories and Statistics as a Counter Narrative; Though out the project we have reached youth organisations from UK, youth workers and social partners in North Macedonia and European Umbrella associations and policy makers at the European level but unfortunately due to budget cuts the wider dissemination was limited to social media, other meetings and events and partners' own capacity to disseminate using their channels."