The ECMA project or the European Changemakers Academy is a long-term project implemented by OBESSU (Organizing bureau of European School Students Union) in partnership with 10 organizations including YEU from Belgium and other partners from Italy, Poland, Ireland, Hungary, Croatia, Estonia and Germany. It is funded through an Erasmus+ program under the call for ‘European Youth Together’ and started this year in the spring.
The project aims to empower young people and strengthen their capacities in becoming changemakers in their local communities through active participation while keeping in mind a bigger perspective of European community. Throughout the project implementation, the main focus will be on 6 Change Ambassadors and 30 Change Makers who will be trained on topics such as community organizing, leadership, mentoring, political participation who will then transfer their gained knowledge to youngsters in their own local communities, achieving a multiplier effect. In doing so, the project aims to ensure the domino effect continues, even after the project ends, allowing the number of changemakers throughout Europe to increase continuously as a direct result.
YEU International is responsible for the creation of methodologies on community organizing, leadership and mentorship and is also involved in supporting the creation of MOOC (massive open online course) in collaboration with our partners Konnekt organization from Hungary and Impossible Foundation from Poland. All these documents/tools are intended to help shape new generations of proactive young people who are able to see burning issues on a local level, by helping them respond to them with meaningful actions for the greater good. In October, YEU will organize a training course for Change Ambassadors and Change Makers in an online space spread throughout 5 weeks where they will learn about topics such are community engagement, organizing and strategizing as well as creating a common vision and making action plans among other topics. This training course is the first one where future Change Makers will meet and set the foundation for all their activities in the upcoming years.
