Closing a youth space makes Europe weaker
Every time a youth space closes its doors, Europe loses a piece of its democratic foundation. Not just a hypothetical threat, but a reality happening more and more across the continent. When physical spaces disappear we are losing the safe environments where young people meet, organise, debate, and grow into active citizens.
Together with:
To see the real-life impact of this silent crisis firsthand, we recently travelled to Antwerp to visit our member organisation, Service Civil International (SCI), which is currently facing this exact, heartbreaking problem.
Building Peace
For decades, SCI has been at the forefront of proactively building peace and fostering intercultural dialogue around the globe. They operate on a simple but powerful premise: peace is not just the absence of war, but a daily practice of solidarity.
Through a wide range of national and international projects, SCI brings people from vastly different backgrounds together. By organising volunteering camps, local community initiatives, and international exchanges, they teach the crucial values of coexistence by "learning by doing." They create environments where young people don't just sit in a room talking about active citizenship, but actually get their hands dirty practicing it, building empathy and breaking down prejudices in the process.
A bittersweet visit
We visited the SCI team in Antwerp at a critical, highly emotional time: due to severe financial constraints, they are currently being forced to leave their physical offices.
Witnessing the closure of this hub was a stark reminder of what is at stake. When a space like this closes, we all lose something deeply important for Europe. We lose a dedicated sanctuary where young people can drop in, find support, organise grassroots campaigns, and actively work on peace-building.
Yet, despite the immense stress and sadness of the situation, SCI is still delivering incredible work, and their resilience was fully on display. Our visit didn’t take place in a quiet, defeated office. Instead, the space was bustling with young volunteers from all over the world who had travelled to Antwerp that very weekend just to help the team free up the space, pack boxes, and move furniture. It was a beautiful, bittersweet testimony to the strength of the community SCI has built. Even as they lose their physical roof, the network of young people they have empowered showed up in full force.
The trap
Why is a successful, thriving organisation forced to close its doors? As the SCI team explained, the root of the problem is a systemic failure in how youth work is financed today: a severe lack of structural funding.
Youth organisations today are caught in a relentless, exhausting cycle. To survive, they have to constantly chase, apply for, and report on short-term, project-based grants. The fatal flaw in this system is that project grants rarely cover core administrative costs. You might win funding to run an amazing international volunteering campaign, but the grant won't pay for the rent, the electricity, or the core staff needed to coordinate the volunteers.
Organisations are forced into "survival mode," spending more time filling out grant applications than actually doing youth work.
Our demands are more needed than ever!
We cannot afford to let our youth spaces disappear one by one. This is why we are translating the reality of the SCI International Secretariat, and countless other organisations across Europe, into a clear, urgent demand for decision-makers.
In the upcoming EU budget, youth organisations must be put at the core.
We need a fundamental shift towards sustainable, structural operating grants and a stronger, more accessible Erasmus+ programme that understands the reality on the ground. We must empower youth spaces to focus on what they do best, building a stronger, more united, and peaceful Europe, rather than forcing them to constantly fight for their basic survival.
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