Euroblog

Coyote is a magazine addressed to trainers, youth workers, researchers, policymakers and all those who want to know more about the youth field in Europe. It is published by the partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth.

Coyote´s interest on the event gave its first outcome already before the conventionhad started, through Coyote Extra – a special issue focusing on the themes of the event. Participants had the chance to explore the key themes of the convention through the pages of the Coyote Extra.

Coyote is also going to dedicate its next issue (no:16) to the event. if you were a participant at the event and want to contribute to Coyote, you can send an email to: youth-partnership@coe.int. You can also access all the previous issues at: http://www.youth-partnersip.net/youth-partnership/publications/Coyote/Coyote. The issue no:16 will be online by November 2010.

Euroblog -together with all other cool things of the convention- will also have their due space in Coyote no:16!

The two conferences came to an end. We were wondering how they’ve experienced the conference. Besides that we also wanted to know if they learned things that are usefull to their own organisation.

How would you summarize the last week in one sentence?

What is your main conclusion at the end of this week?

What’s the most positive experience you had this week?

Was there something negative?

Did you learn things that will be useful in your  organisation?

In short: Workshops, keynotespeakers, more workshops… and an amazing party at S.M.A.K. and MSK.

The first Youth Work Convention has started! Time for a round-up of the first day in a new video report:

It is said that to persuade ministers of the importance of youth work we have to be able to show them our worth in the language they use. ‘Output’ is one element of that language, along with ‘targets’. Graeme Tiffany described to us what that leads to: only getting involved with the easiest group of youths on the street, cause it’s more likely you’ll reach your target with them. He calls it the pistacchio effect: skipping the pistocchio nuts that are closed, as his mother used to do, to only go for the easy open nuts.  Not him, he prefers to grind them open with his teeth.

Another term is ‘economic impact’. How much do we save by investing in youth work? How much revenu does youth work directly produce. No, not in the long term or indirectly, but short term and clearly visible before the next election (which in Belgium is every year nowadays.) Apart from not readily available data, as shown by Miriam Teuma, my question to you is: in what field should we situate that economic return on investment?

In my youth mouvement there were 15 000 leaders, all unpaid voluteers, 80 000 members (chidren and youngsters). What revenue would you like dear ministers?

How about the days and hours of unpaid volunteering? 15 000 leaders, who on on average 3 days per week spend time for their movement. Translated in what is legally alowed as a forfaitary fee for volunteers in Belgium of 30 euro a day, that’s 23 400 000 euro a year you don’t have to invest for only one of the hundreds of youth work organisations.

Although the weekly activities of youth movements go far beyond child minding, you could also translate their time spent in an hourly professional rate. They spend an average of 15 hours a week for their movement, that would give us 152 100 000 euro a year you don’t have to invest. Or for parents just for the weekly activities a fee of 515 euro a year they don’t have to contribute. I don’t have to tell you that if education is your favorite buzzword for our activities, the wages of our teachers are even higher…

This isn’t even counting the conntributions to local communities made through helping on community activities of participating in youth councils. It isn’t counting the fact that studies show that participating in youth organisations, highly stimulates participation in adult organisations and communities. It isn’t translating the social and practical skills the experience in youth mouvements provide you with, where employers don’t have to invest in anymore by (on the job) trainig, or just enduring less performance while you gain experience. It isn’t translating the experience of organizing, taking responsability, taking charge that make you more apt for leading positions in teams, companies, society…

And if you really can only degrade us to prevention there are also studies that show for every euro spent on youth work, you can save 3 or 4 euro spent on intervening later in that childs life.

But maybe we should be measured culturally. It seems you don’t have any problem in providing massive funds for metal plates on the floor or non flying flying machines as long as they can fit in the SMAK. So how many ‘works of art’ do we have to let our 8 year olds produce in an art and crafts activity to get those funds?

Andy Demeulenaere is coordinator at Jeugdwerknet vzw, a Flemish organization that collides youth work and internet. Every day he will write about how he experiences the conference.

First challenge on the Youth Work Convention that started Wednesday Evening: getting to know each other. And the fabulous and gigantic Vooruit building, which will be the environment for a lot of talking, discussing and thinking the next few days.

And the best way to do so for the participants, was to turn the building upside down and inside out and go on a journey that lead them to all corners of Vooruit, with a new suprise in every room!

Time to draw some conclusions and summarize the first European conference on the history of youth work and youth policy.

And then we can move on to the first European Youth Work Convention in the next few days!

When I worked for the youth mouvement, now and again you could hear someone say: “Oh my god, we discussed this already 3 years ago and 6 years ago.” Those were the moments we all new: time for this guy to look for a new position, be it professionally or as a volunteer. Time to make place for the youth. All of us knew: our youth does everything for the first time. They do what they do for 2 or 3 years and then they do something else. In this way the youth mouvement has to reinvent itself time and time again, and often the discussions are very alike and the changes slow.

Yesterday, as the European conference on the history of youth work and youth policy was coming to an end, I grew more and more pessimistic. Research, be it historical or pedagogical, stopped being interested in youth work around 1990. New visions of what we want to do with our society and our role therein were non existant. Researchers, policy makers and alike were only interested in the marginal problems of youth work, seemingly fed up with the rest, tired of the positive story and belief of youth work (the Tony’s (Jeffs and Taylor) being the exceptions that proved the rule).

Today we opened with a youth worker from the seventies, dr. Jan Van Gils, still going strong. He painted a picture of what we wanted youth to grow into: creative, active, participating people. He told us that our youth neede actorship, beingin control, doing it themselves. Things you don’t find in schools, but in non formal activities. The core is making sense, giving meaning (btw in Dutch ‘zingeving’ is closely related to the religious). Children and youngsters need to give meaning to the space they’re in, the time they spend, their being together. And as research shows: people find the most meaning in what they do. So what is a tree to a child without a tree house? (as Youth Minister Pascal Smet put it.) Other key factors are working with and adapted to the context of the daily life of the participants and the modesty of the youth workers: the interaction is of the essence…

This message was also at the heart of what Giuseppe Porcaro (Secretary General of the European Youth Forum) and Antonia Wulff (chair of the Advisory Council on youth policy of the Council of Europe) said. This message was even in the opening speech of our minister of Youth, Pascal Smet.

Funny: because this message shows a lot of similarities with the values of social pedagogy in the 19^th century and with the vision on youth work in the seventies in the UK as described by Tony Taylor (association and conversation). So maybe it’s like this: for those who got stuck on the problems in the side line of youth work, be it youth workers, policy makers or researchers, it’s time to make room for the youth again! Youth has to reinvent youth work time and time again: the discussions will be alike, the changes slow, but there can be nothing for or about youth, without youth!

Andy Demeulenaere is coordinator at Jeugdwerknet vzw, a Flemish organization that collides youth work and internet. Every day he will write about how he experiences the conference.

At the first day of the conference we asked a couple of people what they were expecting. Today at the end of the first conference Sofie went back to check how they look back at the last couple of days.

How would you discribe the past few days in one key word?

What’s the most important new insight you learned?

Did the conference fullfill your expectations?

Interviews by Sofie Vanspeybroeck (REC Radiocentrum)

From the 5th till the 7th of July the Belgian city of Ghent is hosting a European Conference on youthwork. Some 300 international youthworkers where invited. JAVI tv sends a team in for a quick look.