YouthPact has been established to support the EU Peace IV Children & Young People’s Programme. This cross-border partnership is being supported by SEUPB, the Department for the Economy NI and the Department for Children and Youth Affairs to support the work and workers in the Peace4Youth programme, who are running peace-building programmes for young people aged 14-24 across Northern Ireland the border regions.
Find our latest publications under ‘Resources’:
Understanding group work for individual and social learning, Why Young People Join, Why Young People Stay, Gearing Up for Transformative Practice Distilling the Essence of Peace4Youth Practice Ark Policy Brief Why Young People Join, Why Young People Stay.
YouthPact offers training to youth workers to improve their peace-building work with young people, with a focus on key themes which feature across all projects:
- Good relations and peace-building
- Facilitating growth for and with young people
- Engagement with hard-to-reach groups
- What is youth work?
- Citizenship and building social activism
YouthPact creates and disseminates new and existing resources to Peace4Youth workers on youth work approaches, toolkits for specialised themes, on-line youth work materials and YouthPact Practice and Policy Papers to connect the impact of Peace4Youth practice with emerging government initiatives and policies in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
To boost the impact of the Peace4Youth projects for young people, YouthPact gather and distribute information on further programmes or opportunities that participants could join after their project ends. YouthPact also brings young participants together to capture their views on their pressing issues and to feed their views on the value of the Peace4Youth projects back out to workers, organisations and funders, so that improvements can be continuously made for the next group.
(For more information on any YouthPact activity click on the ‘Who’s who’ tab and contact a member of the YouthPact team)
(To access new and existing youth work resources, click the ‘Resources’ tab)
(For more information on the Peace4Youth programme visit www.seupb.eu/piv-children-%26-young-people )
Twitter: @Youth_Pact
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3aeiCDMOUecbMCY9er0J1A
Profiling the Partners in YouthPact
Co-operation Ireland
Co-operation Ireland has a proud history of cross border partnership building and the development of initiatives which guide change in the peace building sector. It has also delivered innovative youth programmes which have informed the development of the wider “United Youth” programme and believe our focus on peace-building adds value to the Peace4Youth programme.
Co-operation Ireland was the lead partner in a number of Peace III funded projects, including the Irish Peace Centres programme (value €3 million) which enabled 4 peace centres to jointly deliver innovative peace building programmes and the FACE programme (value 1 million) which built relationships between service families and local communities in NI. CI was also an IFB for cross border measures of the Peace 1 and Peace II and Interreg IIIA programmes.
Ulster University
Ulster University has a wealth of experience in delivering collaborative research, innovation and impact projects with current involvement in 35 EU projects funded by programmes such as Horizon 2020, Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme, Erasmus+, Framework 7 Programme.
The Community youth work team at Ulster University has a 40+ year history of training professional youth workers. This team understands the nature of youth work approaches and make links between theory, literature and practice; coupled with experience of running community relations projects with young people. The Community Youth Work team has a long-standing commitment to young people having an active role in peace-building. This requires challenges to implicit sectarian values and attitudes and creativity to build inclusive communities & anti-oppressive attitudes. The UU CYW team further believe that youth work approaches can reach those most marginalised and dis-engaged, and deliver moments of significant transformation.
National Youth Council of Ireland
The National Youth Council of Ireland has been the representative body for voluntary youth organisations for over 50 years. NYCI has an extensive range of training, resources and supports for youth organisations enabling them to implement best practice in working with young people. NYCI’s special interest projects and workers focus on youth health promotion including mental health and well-being, youth arts, development education, equality and inter-culturalism and child protection including vetting. To keep in close contact with young people’s lives, NYCI runs a comprehensive youth engagement process, on issues that matter to young people through the member organisations.
NYCI’s vision is of an Ireland where all young people are empowered to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to realise their potential and to actively participate in an inclusive society that values and respects them.
POBAL
Pobal works across sectors including early childhood care, education, social inclusion, employment, cross border programmes and peace-building, to support social and economic development in Ireland.
Pobal focusses on supporting and strengthening communities to enable them to achieve social inclusion, reconciliation and equality through building local social capital.
It has a track record of programme delivery on behalf of the EU, managing ESF and ERDF programmes, as an IFB on successive PEACE Programmes, and served as a hub for all-island programmes relating to community development on both sides of the border. It has formed strategic cross border partnerships with organisations such as Community Foundation NI and Cooperation Ireland.