United Youth - Creating Connections Between Bremen and Riga

The planned project aims to bring together young people from Bremen and Riga and jointly develop creative connections and ideas regarding youth-relevant and sustainable urban development.
From the perspective of youth work practice, the focus is on the following objectives: Mobility promotion and empowerment of disadvantaged youth, Participation and promotion of democracy, Intercultural sensitisation, Promoting volunteering and peer-to-peer learning and Promotion of International Youth Work and (City) Partnership Cooperation

The aim of the project is to enable a heterogeneous group of participants, especially young people with fewer opportunities, to experience an international youth exchange for the first time. This multifaceted, non-formal and intercultural learning experience is seen as particularly formative and empowering for the personal and professional development of the young people as well as for their social environment.

A fundamental objective of the project is also to promote participation and co-determination. The young people can bring their own ideas and conceptions into the programme design and put them into practice. They can make their life realities visible, as it is about shaping their perspectives on their home towns. The project aims to encourage and enable them to know their rights to have a say at the local level and to use them to help shape their concrete living spaces.

Another aim of the project is to reduce stereotypes and prejudices through intercultural exchange and the experience of community. Respect, tolerance and solidarity as fundamental values are to be conveyed. In this way, the project aims to contribute to more diverse youth work that is less discriminatory.

The project aims also to motivate young people to get involved in the youth centres and youth activities of the partner organisations and other activities in the Erasmus programme. They can motivate other young people to participate through their experiences. The long-term goal is for young participants to become multipliers and group leaders for future projects through appropriate youth leadership trainings.

Futhermore, the aim of the project is to provide the applicant organisation with an introduction to international youth work in the Erasmus programme. A long-term cooperation between Nfj and BRF is planned. In addition, the project aims to strengthen and actively shape the perspective of non-formal youth work in the context of town twinning of Riga and Bremen.