ESC: Activating Youth IX.3

ECOS – Cooperativa de Educação Cooperação e Desenvolvimento, CRL, has as its main goal of action the promotion of non-formal education for social inclusion and cohesion. Our activities aim to contribute for the development of a more human, sustainable, fair, inclusive, participative, democratic, equitable, solidarity, cooperative, dialogical, diverse and integrated society. Our main areas of Intervention are: - Creation of spaces for structured dialogue, cooperation and collective construction among different actors, such as social, business and institutional actors. - Promotion, design, implementation and evaluation of educational, social, cultural and sustainable development projects, within formal and non-formal spaces, using non-formal education, always in a way that it complements formal education and contributes to life-long learning. - Monitoring, support, assessment and consultancy to individuals, organisations, institutions and respective educational pogrammes and social intervention projects. - Promotion, recognition and validation of non-formal education and other alternative pedagogical methodologies that contribute for social transformation. ECOS was officially established in the beginning of 2010 by a group of experienced educators and youth workers within the national and European education scope. A significant number of members of the organisation have been, or are still, actively involved in structures such as the European Youth Forum, International youth NGOs active on the European youth policy making and on the Portuguese National Youth Council. This group of young people is decided to bring their experience to their local and regional levels. ECOS, in cooperation with other partners around Europe and Portugal, tries to bring different European dimensions of work to our local and regional communities. ECOS' main motivation for this project is to promote the development of a new culture of youth participation at a local level in Faro and at a regional level in Algarve, Portugal. We believe that this can be done if young people have the opportunity, as some of us did in our youth work experiences, to be involved in experiences and structures that allow them to develop their competences and to see the results of their participation and their efforts. Accordingly, we have developed a diversified network, based in Faro, of civic society organisations that can host meaningful volunteering projects, aiming, at the same time, at the capacity building of the organisations, at the personal and professional development of the volunteers involved, and at the creation of a synergistic dynamic in Faro that enhances participation of young people while also promoting access and information about opportunities for learning through international mobility and others. Following our experience since 2011 with local/regional and international we have developed a know-how, taking into consideration the constant feedback procedures from partners and volunteers, that allows us to implement the project successfully, in each round with more quality and an increased level of achieved objectives that involve youth activation on the local community, awareness on learning international mobilityopportunities for the local youth and capacity building of local organisations working with and for youth. ECOS has been implementing successful projects related to youth since its beginning, in 2010, at local, regional, national and international level. All of the projects target towards the participation of youth, including top down but mainly bottom up formats. We have developed (from idealization to preparation, implementation, evaluation and follow up) different projects and activities, with the support and direction of our experienced staff that has been involved in international youth work and project coordination for the last decade. Moreover, we are connecting our local and regional projects with the ECS, giving it an European and international dimension but also offering the opportunity for an exchange and inspiration within the interaction with the international volunteers, the local youth and the local and regional stakeholders.