Don Bosco initiated the useof apprenticeship contracts, with the first contract of apprenticeship entered into in November 1851, defending young people’s rights to access the labour market under fair conditions. Young People Combating Hate Speech Online is a project being run by the Council of Europe’s youth sector between 2012 and 2014. It aims to combat racism and discrimination, as expressed online as hate speech, by mobilizing young people and youth organisations to recognise and act against such human rights violations. The project is a tribute to youth participation and co-management. It was initiated by the youth representatives in the Joint Council on Youth, the committee which brings together youth leaders belonging of the Advisory Council on Youth and the governmental youth representatives of the European Steering Committee on Youth. The project is therefore being carried out by young people with the support of governmental youth institutions.
The Enter! project was initiated by the youth sector of the Council of Europe in 2009 aiming at the development of youth policy and youth work responses to situations of exclusion, discrimination and violence affecting young people, particularly in multicultural disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This project is a response to the growing concern and attention of the European Steering Committee on Youth and the Advisory Council on Youth, the governmental and non-governmental partners of the youth sector of the Council of Europe, to matters of social cohesion and inclusion of young people.
The main concerns that fed into the project were the multi-dimensional social and economic imbalances which hindered young people in accessing social human rights. The methodology of the project sought alternative ways of thinking and practicing youth work, starting from the involvement of young people themselves, relying on the competent action of youth workers and youth organisations and seeking medium and long-term impact through youth policies at local and national level. Enter! combined different types of activities and youth interventions which, while rooted on the realities of young people and based on youth work practice, sought to influence youth policies in Europe from the local to the national level. On the one hand, the project included activities to train youth workers to carry out more qualitative human rights based youth work. On the other hand, the project extracted policy input and recommendations from the practices of youth work. All this happened with a very clear interdisciplinary approach, both inside and outside the Council of Europe. |