Advising the Council of Europe

21/03/2009

Public Achievement's Director Paul Smyth has just returned from a youth work seminar run by the Council of Europe in Budapest Hungary. Paul was there to advise on a new project that seeks to ensure the social rights of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

Around 30 experts - a mixture of youth work professionals, people from European networking organisations, and policy makers, came together for a three day seminar to help establish the outline of a two-year project under the auspices of the Directorate of Youth and Sport at the Council of Europe. The project is aimed at developing both practice and policy responses to exclusion, discrimination and violence affecting young people in multicultural disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

"There is a clear overlap between this project and the work of Public Achievement - in particular our 'Away from Violence' and 'Breaking the Cycle' projects", said Paul. Additionally, there was great interest in WIMPS and the use of social networking technologies to help enhance the social engagement of young people.

The project will see 35 pilot initiatives across Europe - and in addition to having an ongoing role in advising on the project, it is hoped that we will also be able to participate directly by running one of the pilots. The event was an important opportunity to showcase the work of Public Achievement on a European level and has allowed us to broaden our networks - with a number of the participating organisations interested in developing collaborative projects.

PUBLIC DISCUSSION