4th European Youth Work Convention
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Dariusz: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the next episode of our UNDER 30 podcast. Today we are going to talk about the European Youth Work Convention, which is going to happen very soon in the end of May in Malta. So we have people here who are directly involved in preparing and organizing the event, Miriam, Raphael and also Laszlo from the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership. Maybe you can introduce yourself and tell who you are and what's your involvement in the preparations and running, of course, of the European Youth Work Convention.

Miriam: Okay, I'm Miriam Teuma. I'm the CEO of Aġenzija Żgħażagħ, which is the agency for national youth work. And I represent the Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports, Research and Innovation. And my role really in the convention is [00:01:00] representing governments and working on the conceptual concepts of the convention.

Dariusz: Thank you, Miriam. Raphael, we continue with you.

Raphael: So, I'm Raphael Scerri. I'm the National Coordinator of the National Agency in Malta, the national agency in charge for the management and implementation of the Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps. We are proud to be involved in the organization of this convention, because some of it is being co financed through the European Commission funds, particularly through the Erasmus funds.

Raphael: So, and together with Aġenzija Żgħażagħ, we as a national agency in charge of these programs, and we are involved in the preparation and coordination of the upcoming fourth European Youth Work Convention.

Dariusz: Thank you. Laszlo, I don't know if you have to present yourself again because you have been present several times in there, but maybe for people who are listening to us for the first time. Who are you and what's your involvement in the convention?

Laszlo: Good morning, Darek. Thank you. Yeah, my name is Laszlo [00:02:00] Milutinovic. I work for the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership, and I'm responsible mostly for the youth work related projects, capacity building activities, developing publications and so on. This year, of course, it's a very important task for us and for me to support the implementation of the fourth European Youth Work Convention.

Laszlo: So we have been working very closely together with the Maltese colleague for more than a year now in preparing this activity. And, the youth partnership is, basically responsible for, coordinating the communication, the preparations together with the Maltese, hosts also, supporting the attendance of delegations, national delegations from countries where we have no Erasmus Plus national agencies, and we are also recruiting and organizing the work of facilitators, reporters and other staff and consultants that are contributing to this event.

Dariusz: Thank you. So now we have everybody so we can start. Maybe we can clarify at the beginning a very simple thing. I [00:03:00] mean, simple it may seem to you, but maybe for many people it's not that simple. What actually is the European Youth Work Convention? Because convention sounds very, very serious.

Dariusz: And it seems like it's a lot of people coming. They're convening for something. So what is it? We know that it's not the first European Youth Work Convention. It's the fourth European Youth Work Convention happening now in Malta. So can you explain to us what it is, actually? What's the principle? What is it for?

Miriam: Well, I can start.yes, you said the convention is something serious. And it is serious because it is through these conventions that a group of people meet. I will explain who will meet. A group of people meet to speak about youth work and to try and bring youth work further, to further the youth work development in Europe and at national level.

Miriam: So it's a group of people, the youth workers, researchers, [00:04:00] policy makers, and we have been calling them lately the community of practice, who really get together to see what has been done in the past five years. And what can we do in the coming five years? So, this is whywe get together.

Miriam: As you said, this is the fourth convention. We have had another three. The idea of the convention was to try and push youth work forward, give it recognition, talking about its quality, its importance, its impact.

Miriam: The idea started to try and push the youth work agenda. And now we are here to continue pushing further the youth work agenda with the theme xcelerate.

Miriam: And the idea is to excel and go faster at the same time in the next five years.

Dariusz: Thank you. So we now know a little bit what is the European Youth Work Convention. Why Malta? [00:05:00] Why is it happening in Malta? We know that Malta is going to host actually two very big events this year, which is the European Youth Work Convention and also the Ministerial Conference on Youth.

Dariusz: Can you explain why Malta?

Raphael: So, first and foremost, yes, as my colleague Miriam said,this fourth European Youth Work Convention will provide a platform, first and foremost, to reflect on the coreconcerns of the youth work, whilst at the same time we plan ahead and we also prepare a roadmap where we would like to go.

Raphael: So, even As we were discussing over the past year, we need to create some noise. We need to make people aware what is a youth worker and why a youth worker profession is very important. But at the same time, as I said, we need to plan ahead in order to first and foremost, take stock of what we have. And then we plan ahead to make more concrete actions for the future upcoming years.

Raphael: Why Malta? Malta, thanks to Aġenzija Żgħażagħ, we have [00:06:00] a strong policy supporting young People,I think we are one of the leaders in this aspect. And, we as national agency in charge for the Erasmus Plus, we are quite actively involved in thepreparation and youth programs and even in the policy areas as well.

Raphael: So ensuring quality projects that are supported through funding and to empower youth and youth workers to participate both at national and European level. So back to your question. I think that Malta is one of the leaders in this area, but obviously, this is thanks to all the actions and all the past experiences and initiatives taken by both the National Agency, but primarily by Aġenzija Żgħażagħ.

Miriam: I think,Raphael hit the nail, as they say, yeah, but, I also want to continue a little bit further than this. In May, Malta would assume the presidency for the Council of Europe and therefore this is also [00:07:00] why the convention is in Malta. Usually, when the country assumes a presidency, it decides on its program and the next six months, when we're assuming the presidency, Malta decided to put youth as a priority.

Miriam: So youth is one of its priority pillars, and as we all know, usually, if we have youth as a priority, then there has to be some activities, both in the country and something to take forward in, in the future. So we are starting off with the convention, listening to the voices of people at the convention and see what they wish to see in the coming five years.

Miriam: But we are also continuing with a conference for ministers, where we are going together, the ministers of all the Council of Europe member states. This conference has not happened for the [00:08:00] past 13 years. And the idea is to revivethis meeting, to try and to take stock of what has happened, but also get the ministers understand more.

Miriam: What are the priorities for youth not only youth work in the ministerial conference. What are the priorities for youth and what should we be working for in the coming years. So obviously the results of the convention would also be presented to the ministers so that they are aware what youth work is and take up youth work more seriously in their countries.

Dariusz: Thank you. It's good that there is a clear link between those two events. You have practitioners and also politicians, researchers coming for the convention, and then the ministers coming for, for the ministerial conference, and actually maybe informing themselves about youth work and then making decisions, political decisions related to youth work.

Dariusz: So it's good that it's all happening [00:09:00] in Malta in the end. I would like to go maybe to the convention a little bit to what's going to happen this year. If you can explain to people who are unfortunately not able to come, but also for those who are coming, probably those who are coming already know a bit, or maybe a lot, what people can expect there to happen.

Dariusz: How is it going to be organized? It's quite a challenge to do it, a very lively, interesting and very participatory event for 400 people. It sounds like just a conference, but what people can expect, what's going to happen.

Raphael: So, as I said, obviously, we will take stock of what is happening and plan ahead, but we have planned a number of workshops. So additional to the plenary session, obviously there will be a number of workshops where the persons themselves, the professionals, the youth workers, government representatives, representatives from the European Commission, the Council of Europe, will come [00:10:00] together and we plan ahead through discussions and workshops setups.

Raphael: So there will be a number of workshops over the two days focusing on, as I said, the youth work core functions, why we need a youth work profession, how to strengthen the youth work profession, ensuring recognition, training, but then obviously there are other supplementary workshops to plan ahead, particularly on the future, on strategies to ensure how young people would have access to quality youth work.

Raphael: The people who will be joining us physically here in Malta between the 27th and the 30th, they will have the opportunity to share and to share their voice. That's why we need to create noise. This is something that we would like to give the opportunity and the floor, the participation that everyone should get this opportunity to share his or her concerns, planning initiatives, because [00:11:00] at the end, as I said, we need to plan ahead for the upcoming years.

Laszlo: It's great that Raphael mentioned all the workshops that we are offering and that are aimed at, at planning, brainstorming together, thinking about the challenges that youth work is facing nowadays, but it's equally important for us to also bring together the knowledge of youth work community of practice that also Miriam referred to. So we will also provide space for practical workshops in the program, where we will give the chance for participants that are attending and experts, youth workers to share good practices from all over Europe. There has been a call already and we already selected, actually the Maltese colleagues selected a number of projects to be presented and, also the two partner institutions, so the European Commission and the Council of Europe will be also present with offering certain workshops. And also, of course, the Youth Partnership will share some results of recent researches, sharing about practical manuals and practical tools that can be used for supporting youth work [00:12:00] development.

Miriam: And maybe another thing that I would like to add here is,Raphael was referring to the noise, but I will also refer to the silence. We also would like, like the people to speak out, really, and speak about things that sometimes they feel they have been silenced about, sometimes because of others, or because of the structures that we are in, because of the diplomacies that we use, and sometimes we stay back and don't talk about some issues.

Miriam: So the idea is that we try to push the people and ask a few provocative questions to talk about different silences that exist in youth work. Why are we not really recognizing [00:13:00] youth work? Why don't governments put enough funding in youth work? Why don't we want to educate really ourselves and have an education, a force of people who have been trained very well.

Miriam: Sort of what, who are the volunteers? Who are the youth workers who are paid? What's the tensions between them? Why should, should there be tensions? These are also questions that hopefully will be discussed in, in the workshops.

Dariusz: Thank you. That's very, very interesting. I think these questions are also very, very good to be asked. Okay. Every convention ends up with very concrete results, with things that are usually implemented, that are taken by. Youth Work Community of Practice, by the institutions, by the governments, and so on.

Dariusz: Last convention, which was organized [00:14:00] during COVID times, ended up with with initiating the Bonn process for European Youth Work Strategy. What kind of results do you expect this year in general? And what are your your personal expectations as well from, from the convention?

Miriam: So what, what are the results? Raphael has already mentionedthat we want to end up with a roadmap, a roadmap for the next coming five years with a clear indication on who can, in a way, take ownership of, of coordinating this roadmap. As you said, last time, the last five years, we had the Bonn process.

Miriam: And this lasted for these five years. The Germans will hand the baton now to us. there is the convention. What's going to happen next? Obviously, the European Youth Work Agenda would still be our steering [00:15:00] compass needle. But what priorities are we going to take up from the European Youth Work Agenda to move youth work forward in the coming years?

Miriam: What are the views of, of the people present in the convention. So these are all going to be gathered, make priorities out of those, and also then try and map on how we can act on those priorities and who would act on those priorities. So this time, we are not really going to come up with an idea of a process like the Bonn process.

Miriam: Now it's a road map towards, towards the next coming five years. And throughout these five years quite some things will happen. We will have a new EU strategy, and we would also have to start working on a new strategy for youth sector of the Council of Europe. So we also [00:16:00] hope that these results would feed in the two upcoming new strategies for youth, hopefully with a youth work pillar in them. The Council of Europe has already a youth work pillar, but the EU strategy is youth work is under Engage, which we wish that it would be more visible and with more actions which are more visible and implementable.

Raphael: Yeah, so additional to the strategic point of view, but obviously this will serve as a platform whereprofessionals, youth workers will meet, will set up new partnerships, will set up new networks, and they will also develop new and innovative youth work practices. In a tangible way. So as Miriam said, there is a plan ahead.

Raphael: But apart from the strategic point of view, the convention will also serve to meet each other. Don't forget that the last one was held even online. [00:17:00] So this will be a good opportunity that even such professional persons will meet again face to face. And however, for sure, there will be new contacts that they will be set up, new partnerships, new networks, new innovative youth practices that will be implemented across Europe.

Laszlo: And I also would like to draw attention to a very important aspect of, of the convention and then link it somehow with the follow up of the event that, actually, this is also an event that is jointly supported by the European Commission and the Council of Europe. So it's a joint endeavor of two important, the most important institutions in this field, basically in Europe.

Laszlo: And definitely, I think the outcomes of the convention somehow will also have an impact on the future work of the institutions. It can be through the partnership, because of course the partnership is a partnership between the two institutions. So it's sure that, that our upcoming work plan will be a lot influenced by theoutcomes of the convention.

Laszlo: And that's an intention actually. [00:18:00] But I think even beyond that, the outcomes and the discussions taking place in the event can can have an impact on the, the work of the two institutions. So I really hope that somehow the convention will really contribute to the future development of youth work through influencing decision making processes and the thinking within the two organizations.

Dariusz: Okay, thank you. Convention is happening in Malta. There is a, as Miriam said, 400 people coming. It's a lot of people, but it's also a very limited number of people. We also heard that it has a lot of significance in terms of policy, in terms of, youth work practice as well and research.

Dariusz: I think I'm just wondering, also as a youth worker, and probably a lot of youth workers in Europe may be wondering, what's the benefit of this convention for me as a local youth worker? And, how am I going to benefit from what's developed? I can see that this, this indirect benefit, let's say on policy level and so on.

Dariusz: This is the first question. And the second one, the [00:19:00] delegations are already chosen. But how can I, as a youth worker get involved in it. Well, how can I follow the what's going to happen in Malta?

Raphael: I'm sure that the professionals, the youth workers will benefit from this as it was already explained. There is a plan ahead, so tangibly there will be initiatives and actions to be proposed. At the same time, as you said, the number is limited, even though for us is a huge number, but the population is more than that.

Raphael: However, we encourage everyone to follow the updates through social media, through the official platforms, share initiatives, get in contact even with the national delegations so that then we will be able to get feedback from everyone. So this is the plan that is being followed at this point in time.

Raphael: We are gathering information. We are in consultation with all the member states and even beyond and all the participating countries [00:20:00] to share and to disseminate information. So even though those who will not be physically being able to come over to Malta, they will still have the opportunity toshare their views. And even we encourage everyone, however, to get in contact and follow the event updates. And as a final recommendation is that all youth workers or young leaders should be involved in discussions and make their voice heard. It is important that they are involved and they will give this platform and this opportunity to everyone to share his or her voice so that then obviously we'll take stock and we can plan ahead after the convention.

Miriam: So, besides what Raphael has explained, we'll also havea youth work talk.

Miriam: It's part of one of the key action two projects of, of the national agencies Growing [00:21:00] Youth Work. And the idea is that on the 8th of April we are going to discuss the convention. And we would have an invite for everyone to follow and be part of this youth work talk, and take the results of this youth work talk to the convention itself. So, that is a way on how youth workers who cannot be part of the delegation can participate in the convention. Obviously there are also many other initiatives going on in Europe. There is another (inaudible) Europe Goes Local, who will have,a meeting. They have a meeting once a year on the progress of the project and the work at local level.

Miriam: And the European Youth Work Convention will also be discussed there. So, so there are other opportunities where youth workers can really take, take part. And hopefully there will be also more opportunities [00:22:00] after the convention on how, so, engaging the delegation to meet other youth workers after the convention.

Miriam: These are the things on what we expect from the delegation after them being at the convention to disseminate what they have, really got from the convention, what experiences that they go to disseminate them with other youth workers. So we really hope and we're trying. our best to have a ripple effect on, on what's happening at the convention, really to, to the youth workers, both at national, regional, local level.

Dariusz: Thank you. Laszlo, anything to add?

Dariusz: Because I would like to wrap up a little, because it's already half an hour that we have been talking. So, if there is anything really to add, Laszlo, this is the last moment.

Laszlo: know. So if it does last chance, then of course I can, I was not sure. yeah, maybe, already,refer, refer to that, that of course, all thepeople interested in the outcomes of this event in the [00:23:00] discussions can follow us on social media. There will be, of course, different channels, but I would especially call attention to the fact that the youth partnership has a very active presence in social media. So I really encourage everybody, those that are attending, but also those who are not able to attend to follow all the content that we are sharing through our social media channels. It can be easily found through our webpage or on Instagram and so on.

Laszlo: And, what is also important that some of the, the, audience of people who are listening to this podcast might know the Coyote magazine, the Coyote use work magazine that has been an important product and channel also to communicate with the youth work community of practice for many years now.

Laszlo: And this is something that is published regularly by the,= Youth Partnership. So we will have an extra edition, an edition of the Coyote Magazine this year before the convention dedicated to the, the event. So there will be lots of interesting articles, interviews there on the topic. So if, if people want to learn more about it and the background and so on, I really [00:24:00] encourage, them to check this out.

Laszlo: And also there will be another batch of articles coming out in Coyote magazine after the event. So, yeah, I really encourage everybody to keep an eye on all that.

Dariusz: Thank you. And there is also a dedicated page on the website of the partnership that is about the convention. I guess maybe this also is going to be updated throughout the event. So thank you. I think it was very informative. Very, very interesting. I think it would be really good to record an episode after the convention, maybe even with the same people and to see what happened and if those expectations were actually fulfilled.

Yeah, we encourage everybody to follow the convention through social media mainly, during the event, but also before to get informed, and yeah, Miriam, Raphael, Laszlo, good luck. It's a big event. there's probably also a lot of political expectations from it. So good luck in organizing.

Dariusz: It's a nice place to come and I hope that people really get what they want from [00:25:00] the event. Thanks a lot.