international strategy 2016-2020

INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY EUROPEAN YOUTH PARLIAMENT

European Youth Parliament | www.eyp.org | EuropeanYouthParliament

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1. Introduction

2. Overview

3. Mission, aims and values

4. Inclusion

5. Empowerment

6. Contribution

7. Stability and continuity

8. Implementation and renewal

9. Conclusion

TABLE OF CONTENT

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1.INTRODUCTION

The European Youth Parliament (EYP) is the leading non-governmental organisation for civic education of young people in Europe. Since 1987, we have inspired and em-powered hundreds of thousands of young people to become open-minded, tolerant and active citizens. Today, the EYP has national chapters in over three dozen countries, and it reaches over 25,000 young people each year. It is run and developed further by thousands of committed volunteers.


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In a voluntary organisation, long-term thinking must often make way for tackling short-term chal-lenges. In recent years, however, we have also come to understand the value of critically examining our organisation and developing it in a more conscious way. We have also come to understand the value of acting as one.

The first development strategy of the European Youth Parliament was developed in 2011–2012, and it was designed for the period 2013–2015. Now, it is time to look forward. With this International Strat-egy, we reach out to the European Youth Parliament of 2020. In doing so, we seek to learn from the first international strategy cycle and, importantly, use our enhanced understanding of the organisa-tion. In 2015, we reviewed and renewed the EYP’s mission and, for the first time, established its val-ues. Today, we understand the EYP better than before, and this understanding forms the foundation of the new International Strategy.

Based on the newly established values – our ideals for the EYP – we have examined the organisation critically and recognised three areas with particular room for development: inclusion, empowerment and contribution. We have also agreed on one other crucial area: the stability and continuity of our organisation. These four areas of development form the four pillars of the International Strategy. By focusing on becoming better in these fields, we believe we can truly transform the EYP in the years to come.

We have approved this International Strategy with the wish and aim of promoting strategic thinking and action on all levels of the EYP. The International Strategy doesn’t belong to any one actor in our organisation; like the mission and values, it concerns each National Committee, international actor and active volunteer. Only by committing ourselves to these priorities and acting as one can we hope to truly reach, inspire and empower the young people of Europe.


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2. OVERVIEW

The EYP’s network structure should also be reflected in the International Strategy. While the Govern-ing Body and the Board of National Committees can set strategic priorities for the EYP network, it mostly falls on the National Committees to pursue them. The EYP cannot be led in a strictly hierarchic way. Furthermore, the National Committees are in the best position to examine their strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and challenges – no two National Committees are alike.

For these reasons, the international strategy process is structured into three parts. The first is the In-ternational Strategy itself. It defines the strategic priorities and general directions for the EYP network as a whole, focusing on four different areas: inclusion, empowerment, contribution, and stability and continuity. These priorities are meant to apply on all levels of the EYP, from the local to the interna-tional. These four pillars are elaborated on in this document.

The second part are the International Measures. Based on the four strategic focus areas, we have identified a number of more specific goals and measures for the international level of the EYP. The responsibility for acting on these goals and measures lies with our international actors: the Governing Body, the Board of National Committees, the International Office and the Councils.

The third part are the National Committee Strategies. Based on the four strategic focus areas, the National Committees are responsible for identifying goals and measures that are relevant and rea-sonable for them. As said, the environments our National Committees operate in vary greatly, and it is important that they are able to set realistic and meaningful targets for their development. If they so wish, the National Committees can also bring the strategic priorities to the local and regional level in their countries.

The three key elements of the strategy process are closely connected to each other. The four focus areas specified in the International Strategy are the foundation for both international and national measures, and the implementation of the strategy is evaluated on both levels on a regular basis. Fur-ther information on the implementation of the strategies can be found in chapter 8.

The European Youth Parliament is a network organisation. Our most important actors are the National Committees, operating in all corners of Europe – from Norway to Cy-prus and Portugal to Azerbaijan. Most of our activities are organised by the National Committees, and our active volunteers are most directly reached by them. Each Na-tional Committee has a unique history, and it operates in a unique environment.


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International Strategy

Inclusion

The EYP is a welcoming environment to all young Europeans. It provides equal opportunities to all its participants, their gender, ethnicity and na-tionality, socioeconomic status and ability not-withstanding. All National Committees are closely integrated into the EYP network.

Empowerment

The EYP provides valuable educational opportunities to young people at all stages of their participation in the EYP. It critically examines its educational goals and methodology, developing them further and adapting them to different target groups.

Contribution

The EYP has an abundance of committed and able volunteers on all levels of the organisation, and volunteering for the EYP is considered an interesting and rewarding opportu-nity. Active volunteers are closely integrated into the decision-making of the National Committees and the international EYP.

Stability and continuity

The EYP and its National Committees are managed strategically, with stable structures providing the platform for continued growth. Funding on both national and international level is secured from a variety of sources and with a strengthened focus on long-term partnerships.

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STRATEGY & MEASURES


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3. MISSION, AIMS AND VALUES


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AIMS

VALUES

Our mission: to inspire and empower young Europeans to become open-minded, tolerant and active citizens.

MISSION

Raise awareness of European issues, en-courage active Euro-pean citizenship and motivate young people to get involved in Euro-pean politics.

Promote international understanding, inter-cultural dialogue and diversity of ideas and practices.

Contribute to the personal skills devel-opment of European youth.

Provide a forum in which young people of Europe can express their own opinions, without reverting to role play.

Intercultural understandingCooperation

Empowerment Pluralism Contribution

Independence Non-partisanship Democracy Inclusion


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4. INCLUSION

As an educational organisation, the EYP aims to inspire and empower young Europeans, and it is crucial that it is open to all young Europeans. Access to traditional educational opportunities is highly unequal both across Europe and within individual states. An active effort is required to transcend economic, social and cultural barriers, both those outside the EYP which may limit access to our activities, and those within our activities which may limit the development of our organisation and participants.

In recent years, inclusion has become a topic of discussion within the EYP, and the need to prioritise it has become increasingly clear. Although the EYP largely fosters an open and ac-cepting social environment, there remain many structural barriers both to initial participation and development within the organisation. The vast majority of our participants are from urban areas, attend schools aimed towards university education and have relatively privileged socio-economic backgrounds – often making them individuals who also have many other opportuni-ties for personal development next to taking part in the EYP.

Although travelling to other parts of Europe is an integral part of the educational experience the EYP offers, taking part in events abroad remains prohibitively expensive for many who join the organisation. Within the network, exchange between National Committees is also limited and often occurs on a regional basis, in part due to the greater expense of travelling far, and in part due to latent prejudice. The unevenness of exchange throughout the network also hinders the development of National Committees in more remote regions.

In the field of inclusion, we wish to focus on four distinct areas: inclusion, outreach, mobility and regional representation.

InclusionInclusion is the organisational practice and goal of making the EYP a welcoming environment to all young Europeans and creating equal opportunities for all members within our network. Measures should be taken to identify and reduce barriers to participation, both in our organisa-tion’s structure and its culture. Rethinking some elements of our activities and basic methodol-ogy, and creating an overall more inclusive mindset both organisationally and individually, is required.

Outreach Whereas inclusion is about critically examining the insides of the EYP, outreach is about setting our sights as wide as possible. (Naturally, inclusion and outreach go hand-in-hand.) Measures should be taken to make the EYP more accessible to those who would not usually reach us, making our participant group more diverse as a whole. Outreach has been defined as targeted action to involve young people from five key target groups: those from a poor socioeconomic background, students from vocational schools, ethnic minority groups, students with immi-grant backgrounds, and those living in geographically remote areas.

Vision: The EYP is a welcoming environment to all young Europeans. It provides equal opportunities to all its participants, their gender, ethnicity and nationality, socioeco-nomic status and ability notwithstanding. All National Committees are closely integrat-ed into the EYP network.


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MobilityMobility is important for our participants, active volunteers and National Committees: partici-pants who have the opportunity to travel across the network are more likely to “do well” in the EYP, and National Committees with many such participants usually thrive the most, benefiting from international connections and the flow of ideas and expertise. Measures should be taken to allow more of our members to enjoy the chance to travel across the network and beyond their region, thus extending this key part of the EYP’s educational experience to more of our participants and facilitating the development of our National Committees.

Regional representationBecause of our National Committees’ varying histories, environments and priorities, they are currently somewhat unequally represented in the international EYP network, with some Na-tional Committees having a much stronger say on the EYP’s development than others. Measures to better integrate all National Committees into the network should be taken. Furthermore, greater solidarity within the network demands a greater willingness from National Committees to engage with one another equally, and to support one another’s development. We must en-sure that opportunities within the organisation are equal, regardless which National Commit-tee one comes from.


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5. EMPOWERMENT

At its core, the EYP is about education: our participants engage in personal development through action and reflection, and we foster this development by providing them with both challenging opportunities and support. Through their participation in the EYP, young Europe-ans gain valuable skills, knowledge and confidence and become empowered to have an impact in society. This must be a field of constant development, as we work to improve our educational work and increase the opportunities we offer our participants. Innovation is highly decentral-ised and usually arises within National Committees; the drive for development is there, but a shared strategy is needed to focus on weaknesses, set priorities and move forward as an ever better educational organisation.

Our primary educational work is aimed at those who participate at a handful of sessions as del-egates - pure “consumers” of the EYP experience. Our methodology here has been developed and solidified over 25 years, but the last few years have brought changes in how we prepare del-egates, the topics we discuss, the format of our events and our expectations towards the level of debate. However, there is little discussion on how to best help young students understand complex content, make events appropriate to participants and whether our core methodology is always suitable or how it could be more consciously developed.

Next to providing educational opportunities for participants to “consume”, the EYP also focuses on offering further development opportunities to those who actively work on providing these primary activities: our many volunteers. For them, further opportunities for development, in particular through training and more varied roles within the organisation, are needed. Training is already institutionalised as a key component of almost every EYP session, and many training events are held, including an annual Training for EYP Trainers (T4ET). Nonetheless, we can do more to increase both the breadth of trainings offered, as well as the general quality of training through a training culture which fosters awareness of and engagement with training methods and skills.

In the field of empowerment, we wish to focus on three distinct areas: transversal skills, educa-tional value and opportunities for personal development.

Transversal skills As an organisation targeted at civic education, the EYP seeks to equip its members with trans-versal skills (“21st century skills”) that formal education does not often cater to. Measures should be taken to identify which skills the EYP is in a special position to offer and to conscious-ly integrate these into our educational experience. Through understanding this aspect of our educational work better and marketing it more effectively both internally and externally, we can ensure taking part in and volunteering for the EYP is an attractive prospect to young Euro-peans willing to succeed in working life and the society more generally.

Vision: The EYP provides valuable educational opportunities to young people at all stages of their participation in the EYP. It critically examines its educational goals and methodology, developing them further and adapting them to different target groups.


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Educational valueIn many ways, we do our educational work exceptionally well without even thinking about it – as if by nature, or by relying on routine. Development, however, is not possible without the conscious examination of this work. We should constantly seek to increase the educational value of what we do: this does not necessarily mean increasing what is commonly referred to as “academic quality”, but working on better fulfilling our educational goals. Measures should be taken to adjust our educational methodology, as well as activities themselves to clear target groups, raising and homogenising the educational quality of our events across the network and fostering innovation in this field.

Opportunities for personal development The opportunities for personal development we provide to our active volunteers should be con-sidered equally important as those provided to our first- or second-time participants; after all, the organisational strength of the EYP depends on us being able to make continued commit-ment to it interesting and rewarding. Measures should be taken to raise awareness on existing opportunities for personal development and create new opportunities, in particular by foster-ing a stronger training culture within the EYP. Measures should be set out to increase the num-ber of training events, increase the skill and expertise in training and tailor training in the EYP to the needs of the National Committees and our participants.


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6. CONTRIBUTION

The EYP is organised by young people, for young people; it is built on the work of thousands of young volunteers. We believe in the power of volunteering and take pride in the achievements of our volunteers. Participants are expected and encouraged to take responsibility for their organisation quickly and to bring in their own ideas. This is integral both to making our activi-ties possible and to empowering young people through skills development. Furthermore, we not only simulate democratic processes but apply them in the running of our organisation. Our many volunteers are those who plan, prepare and carry out our activities, so they should also be those who make decisions on its running.

We offer many opportunities to volunteer – there is no shortage of work to be done – but there is work to be done in rewarding our volunteers. Running a non-governmental voluntary organi-sation is not a simple task, and rewarding our volunteers and showing the added value of vol-unteering is both an ideological goal and a strategic necessity for the long-term development of the EYP. In order to grow, we must strengthen the pool of volunteers by strengthening the volunteer experience we provide.

To be true to our values, of which democracy is one, the selection of decision-makers must be democratic across the network. On an international level, the EYP has democratic structures in place, as do most National Committees. But the establishment of democratic structures, which must be an absolute priority, is only the first step. Participation levels are still low in almost all places, from National Committee board elections to debates on our international policies. We must strengthen our democratic structures and increase participation to truly live up to our democratic values and make our active volunteers feel they have a say in the running of the EYP.

In the field of contribution, we wish to focus on two distinct areas: volunteering and democ-racy.

VolunteeringWe wish to involve more people in running the organisation, so that responsibility does not lie on the shoulders of the few but the many, and to make volunteering in the EYP as rewarding as possible. Measures should be taken to better reward our volunteers, be more explicit about the power of volunteering, and improve its image on all levels of the organisation.

DemocracyDecisions made on the national and international levels of the EYP affect all our participants, and they shouldn’t be made by a select few but through an open and inclusive process. Taking greater responsibility of the EYP begins with living up to the value of democracy which we as-pire to. Measures should be taken to strengthen (and, where necessary, establish) democratic processes and increase participation in elections and public debate within the organisation. As the international governance of the EYP relies on the Board of National Committee acting as a voice for the National Committees, measures must also be taken to increase the engagement of the National Committees in international matters and thus ensure their representation.

Vision: The EYP has an abundance of committed and able volunteers on all levels of the organisation, and volunteering for the EYP is considered an interesting and rewarding opportunity. Active volunteers are closely integrated into the decision-making of the National Committees and the international EYP.


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7. STABILITY AND CONTINUITY

Over its history, the EYP has grown immensely, and it continues to do so at an extraordinary rate. Nonetheless, in an organisation with a high turnover of participants and active volun-teers, and whose financing is largely event-based, ensuring stability and continuity is a chal-lenge. Steps must be taken at every level of the organisation to retain knowledge and to build structures which will form a solid foundation for the EYP to continue to build on, year by year. More and more National Committees have begun to develop and implement their own strate-gies, but there is much still to be done.

The challenges faced by National Committees are varied, but there are nonetheless common issues which derive in part from our nature as an organisation. Most board members or active volunteers only work for their National Committee for around two years at most, and much knowledge and experience, as well as contacts outside the organisation, is lost in transition. Hand in hand with the short “life span” of our volunteers goes a tendency to think in a simi-lar timespan to individual involvement (around two years), often compounded by a fear that making decisions which impact future decision-makers would be overstepping. The lack of long-term, strategic thinking is also exacerbated by the enormous administrative workload in-volved in running a National Committee, which means that less immediate challenges are not prioritised.

As the EYP's activities are mainly events, the vast majority of national and international fund-ing is event-based, not least because funding to cover the many administrative and capacity-building costs is more difficult to find. Several National Committees have succeeded in build-ing strong partnerships with either public institutions, other non-governmental organisations or companies who help build a financial backbone for their activities, and an office for admin-istrative tasks. However, the majority still struggle to cover administrative and day-to-day run-ning expenses. Long-term growth and stability depend on both the resources and administra-tive capacity to handle an organisation of this size.

In the field of stability and continuity, we wish to focus on three disctinct areas: organisational stability and continuity; professionalism; and administrative capacity and management skills. Organisational stability and continuityMeasures should be taken to establish better continuity in an organisation with such a high turnover of volunteers, and build strong foundations to ensure the long-term stability of the EYP. Next to the key step of developing National Committee Strategies under the wider Inter-national Strategy, measures should be taken to increase knowledge sharing both between Na-tional Committees and especially within them. Emphasis is laid on the following three areas: increasing financial stability, greater strategic thinking and better knowledge-sharing across National Committees and within them.

Vision: The EYP and its National Committees are managed strategically, with stable structures providing the platform for continued growth. Funding on both national and international level is secured from a variety of sources and with a strengthened focus on long-term partnerships.


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ProfessionalismThe EYP is an organisation by young people, for young people, but it is important that we pay attention to running it by sound professional procedures and standards. Measures should be taken to professionalise our events, offering a better experience to all participants and establishing the EYP as a youth-run organisation with a high level of credibility. This means working on the quality of both the content and the execution of our events, our contact with external partners, our public image and our functioning as an organisation at large.

Administrative capacity and management skillsRunning the EYP organisation requires considerable administrative capacity and man-agement skills, something young volunteers don’t often have, at least at the start of their participation in the EYP. Measures should be taken to increase our administrative capacity and improve our management skills, making us able to take on and manage more as our organisation grows. Measures should be taken both to develop management skills among our volunteers and to build capacity for the administration of the organisation, for example through offices and staff members.


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8. IMPLEMENTATION AND RENEWAL

To support the four general focus areas outlines in this document, more specific goals and measures on different levels of the EYP have been developed. On the international level, the Governing Body, the Board of National Committees and the International Office will be respon-sible for implementing the International Measures as outlined in a separate document. The National Committees are responsible for developing, implementing and renewing their own National Committee Strategies.

No strategy is set in stone, and the International and National Strategies of the EYP must also be regularly reviewed and renewed, as progress is made and weaknesses found, and as cir-cumstances change. In order to track progress, the strategy will be reviewed at least once every year. The Governing Body will evaluate both progress on international measures and that of the National Committees annually.

Having identified progress – or otherwise – both the Governing Body and the National Com-mittees are responsible for reconsidering the goals and measures they have chosen, either to better reflect the real rate of progress or to change the measures taken when the existing meas-ures seem unsuccessful. The four pillars may remain, but the individual aims will grow and change as EYP does, too.

This International Strategy outlines the key pillars upon which the EYP’s development for the next five years will be built. They have been derived from the values of the EYP, as well as a comprehensive evaluation of the EYP network’s current strengths and weaknesses. The four focus areas should be taken into consideration at all levels of the organisation, from the international to the local, and taking the EYP forward in these areas will require a concerted effort by all National Committees, international actors and active volunteers. The International Strategy takes effect on 1 January 2016, and the strategy cycle is five years.


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9. CONCLUSION

Our mission is to inspire and empower young Europeans to become open-minded, tolerant and active citizens.

In nearly three decades, the EYP has been transformed from a humble but promising project for schools to a leading pan-European organisation for civic education of young people. It can-not be accurately predicted what the EYP will look like in 15, ten or even five years, but we can choose the directions we would like it to develop towards. This International Strategy does so by outlining the key areas of development we wish to focus on: inclusion, empowerment, con-tribution and stability and continuity. By taking concrete action in these fields, we believe we can again transform the EYP. The responsibility of doing so lies with each and every member of our organisation.

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