|
 ROYAL NORWEGIAN EMBASSY IN AZERBAIJAN |
 AZERBAIJAN YOUTH EURO ATLANTIC ORGANIZATION |
 THE EURASIA FOUNDATION |
BRIEF PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND PURPOSE:
This project was committed to raise civic awareness, promote high democratic political culture among young people and to stimulate active participation of young people in civil society as well as to provide them with the opportunity to experience democracy, its functional structure and procedures. In the framework of this project there were established an institution of Youth Clubs and Country-wide Network in Azerbaijan. “Young Leaders” Clubs and Country-wide Network will be an active institution of civil society that will conduct its activity on permanent basis in different five regions of Azerbaijan. The project “Young Leaders” clubs and Country-wide Network had a long-term goal to establish an educational institution of Country-wide Network of Youth Clubs in Azerbaijan, which would raise public awareness, promote democratic values (on basis of the Euro-Atlantic values) and motivate young people to participate actively in civil society. The established clubs in 5 regions of Azerbaijan and Country –wide Network gave strong ground to gather young people together, organize different activities such as seminars, training courses, round tables, discussions, debates, cartoon exhibitions, festivals and many other activities and thus, raise knowledge of young people on Euro-Atlantic values and promote active participation of youth in social life. Project’s duration was from: August 1 2007 – September 2008
Objectives
To raise level of awareness and knowledge of young people in the regionsØ about Euro-Atlantic values;
To promote high democratic and politicalØ culture, better civic and democratic awareness, high motivation and interests among youth to make positive innovations and contribute in development of Azerbaijani society;
To establish “Young Leaders” Clubs as well asØ Country-wide Network in the 5 regions of Azerbaijan that will be promoters of above mentioned aims (Sumqayit, Ganja, Shaky, Lankaran and Guba);
To uniteØ and mobilize young people in order to develop in them high motivation and advanced initiative in active participation in political life of the society;
To encourages young people to be aware of current affairs and democraticØ processes conveying not only enthusiasm for active participation, but also a sense for social responsibility;
Training course had been organized in order to teach basic and important skills to young activists. Training course covered two main dimensions:
Introduction and profound knowledge about Euro-Atlantic values, democraticØ institutions, progressive social initiatives, active youth participation in political life of society and development of civil society;
BasicØ leadership and management skills - management development, training and facilitating skills, monitoring capabilities, high initiative developing and effective project implementation.
Training course has been followed by developing of organization procedures, charter and details activity plans for Clubs of Young Leaders. Then together with well-trained young people there were officially established Club of Young Leaders in all regions of the country, which had a goal to conduct activities for further promotion of democratic values among Azerbaijani youth. Afterwards there were two-months devoted to first activity stage of Clubs. In this period Clubs have conducted different events aimed to achieve above-mentioned goal. These youth afterwards applied their knowledge and skills to the club activities, thus involved new young people and passed gained information and knowledge to them.
Another important event in the framework of this project was an organization of Meetings of representatives of Young Leaders Clubs (5 representative from each Club) in each region of Clubs’ locations. Starting from second month of project implementation there were conducted 5 meetings of representatives of Clubs in every region where Clubs’ activists have discussed outcome of conducted activities, gave feedbacks and thought on the ways of improvement for further events. There were also an exchange of experience and discussion on development of common strategy for achievement of long-term goals.
