ESC: Development Support for Transylvania - Volume 12

The Youth Association from Transylvania Brașov Branch was established by the founding members of the Youth Association from Transylvania that operates from Cristuru Secuiesc, namely Fodor Mózes (president), Nagy Géza Attila (vice-president), István Hegyi (administrator) together with Erika Andrási. The founding members of the Youth Association from Transylvania that was established in 2011 have more than 10 years of experience in organizing local and internationally funded youth and adult education activities that have a useful community development function and also an innovative character to Cristuru Secuiesc, its region and Transylvania as well. They are joined by Erika Andrási, who lives in Brașov, who has a BA in pedagogy and psychology and specialization in rural and community development and 15 years of experience in these fields. The Youth Association from Transylvania established its Brașov branch to promote the development of Transylvanian communities from multiple points of work, to represent the general and community interests of members in social, cultural, sporting, educational, leisure and professional activities, thus ensuring the active participation of young people in preserving ethnic, national and European values. Our first choice was Brașov, because we believe that by ‘grabbing’ this local community we could broaden our goals. We plan to set up new branches throughout Transylvania in the future. Our statutory objectives are to: a. represent the personal, social, civil, professional, economic, sporting and recreational interests of youth in Transylvania b. ensure youth involvement in the conservation of traditional, folk, cultural and ethnic values in Transylvania, and to promote these values on a national and international level c. improve youth access to opportunities offered for young people on a national, European and international level and offering information on this in our region, and d. collaborating and forming partnerships with other groups, associations and foundations in Transylvania, Romania, in the European Union and worldwide. Brasov is a city in Romania and the administrative center of Brașov County, with population of 253,200. We are able and strongly needed to share our goals with the people in the area and surly with all around in Romania. - We need to start to put into effect the original plan of our NGO, to truly become the Youth Association from TRANSYLVANIA, by established the branch, that more effectively empower, include and train our target groups (children, teenagers, youth and young adults, ages to 3-35), from multiple cities, areas, so that we better improve their chances both on the national and on the European job markets. Until now we have two base, in Cristuru Secuiesc and from 2018 in Brasov, but we focused on hosting our projects in multiple venues in Transylvania and when we sent our youth to opportunities throughout the world, we focused our selection to cover Transylvania. - We should enlarge our employed and volunteering staff so that we have more capacities and knowledge to start doing larger, not one off projects, but more strategically planned ones through which we can not only guide and follow positive changes in the mentality of our target groups, but also support those institutions dealing with education in our region (kindergartens, schools, highschools, VETs and NGOs), who do not have the capacity and knowledge to get involved into Erasmus+ projects. - We need to continue working on the existing main pillars of our areas of expertise, which focus on the SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT of our region, the INCLUSION of our target groups who belong to the Hungarian or Roma minority in Romania, or are deaf, that come from socially, economically and geographically disadvantaged rural areas and on ENTREPRENEURSHIP skill development among young adults, BUT ALSO on developing new ones based on newly identified needs, most importantly, to become experts on EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT, as a strategy and tool that can support our youth and our local partners, the institutions dealing with education and on creating new, INNOVATIVE methods and activities that better assess and respond to the needs of our target groups and partners. It is important to note that all these parts of our strategic plan, largely rely on the realization that the schools in our region mainly struggle with day to day teaching obligations, management issues and lack of staff and have little to know capacity and knowledge in joining European projects that would offer new, better skills to their students and their staff. In fact, as they are willing and strive to become better, but realize that they lack the know-how, many of them asked us to support them in this sense.