>Quo Vadis Youth in Action?

The Youth in Action Programme for years has supported and financed young people all over the continent, and in some cases also outside of it. For yours it has been the biggest youth fund, which allowed hundreds of thousands of youngsters, students and young graduates to explore other cultures, other countries, to work and volunteer abroad, to share their visions and develop project which aimed to change environment they are living in. The Programme has been teaching us how to be good and active citizens, how to respect others and diversity and how to work on common goals and strive for European unity.

But now, waiting impatiently we are all fear that it might be all, it might change in the future. We fear that the change that has been made by the Programme, especially in the mentality of many young Europeans, might never happen again with the next generations! For all of you, who are not aware of what is going on at this very moment, the European Commission is now just about to publish the first communication on the future of mobility, education and youth. The future of many, maybe sometimes not perfect, maybe sometimes object of our complaints, but still important and valuable, Programmes.

What are the needs of young people in the current Europe is quite obvious. Millions of young people are struggling to find a decent work, which matches with their experience, knowledge and education. Millions of people are simply unemployed, and often these lucky ones which got a job, are unable to get a permanent, long-term contract. Often young people are dissatisfied with what the labour market has to offer them. Many claim that we are the best educated generation in the history of Europe, with the fewest opportunities and chances to apply the knowledge we gathered during our studies in our professional life. There is also a risk that we will be the first generation to have fewer opportunities than our parents had. So for sure employability, entrepreneurship and challenges of the labour market are the issues that have to be tackled by the next generation of the EU programmes prepared for 2014-2020. These are also one of focuses of the EU2020 Strategy, to increase opportunities working for young people all over the continent.

But is it the only thing that should be tackled? Is it the only thing that we expect from these programmes? Definitely not. For years EU programmes strongly supported active citizenship, participation of young people, intercultural dialogue and building of the European society! Reflection of thousands of people, which were published just before the weekend in the report from the public consultations on the future of the Youth in Action Programme, shows clearly that expectations towards the Programme are more or less the same. Young people do look for more opportunities to implement their ideas, which are not necessarily, directly connected with their future careers. They are looking for chances to work with others, to meet them, to learn usually completely immeasurable skills, sometimes even hard to describe. But was also one of the great advantages of the previous rounds of the Programme, that it provided a great tool to support non-formal education and informal learning.

We have to keep also in mind that even with the current priorities of the Programme, it increases chances for employment of young people. It is not only supporting non-formal education, but also providing to young people a very unique tool of the European Voluntary Service, which supported mobility of young people and gave them a chance of experiencing learning and working abroad. So all the complaints, that the project under the current shape does not have an impact on employability of young people would not be true. Our generation is expecting different ways of learning and acquiring skills, but it means that what we are provided with is not only formalised education and skills which are easily describable in our CVs.

Many people, who are now involved directly in the future of Youth in Action fear, that the Programme in the future will change its shape, from a considerably flexible support for young people to help them in implementation of their projects, to a strictly career-oriented support system for people preparing themselves for entering the labour market. Of course it is important, and I guess everybody who has any knowledge about problems of young people would admit it, but it cannot be the only focus. And the European Commission should be aware of that.

The communication is approaching us. Let’s hope that the successor of Youth in Action will be focused on various aspects, that will give young people a chance to work on what they are interested in, that it will contribute to building in the future of a common, open, pan-European society.