9 National Youth Councils work on strengthening their sustainability

Last week (21st to 24th October), the European Youth Forum organised a training event for its National Youth Council (NYC) members in Helsinki, Finland. The training, kindly hosted by Allianssi, the national youth council of Finland, is focusing on key issues that impact the sustainability of national youth councils, including organisational development, strategic planning and participation of member organisations.

Over the course of the event, 18 participants from 9 NYCs received professional training but also enjoyed the opportunity to learn from each other via exchanging best practices. Several sessions focused on identifying the NYCs’ strengths and weaknesses, and on assessing the suitability and feasibility of their projects plans. NYCs were also briefed on how to create coherent and comprehensive implementation plans and how to involve their membership.

In times of continued austerity measures in many European countries, there is a significant risk of lower government funding for national youth councils and we have already seen instances of significant cuts to members’ funding. In this context, it is vital that NYCs have strong structures and well developed strategic plans so that they can remain sustainable in the long-term.

The Youth Forum would like to thank the participants from United Kingdom, Portugal, Cyprus Georgia, Russia, Belarus, Turkey, Ukraine and Serbia for their hard work and fruitful collaboration during this meeting. We also want to express our gratituted towards Allianssi for hosting this meeting