ESC: Youth lab: La Sagra

-youth work (14 to 30 years old) -ESC volunteering (host/send/lead) -Youth exchanges(14-17 years and 18 to 30) -local youth centers(14-24 years)
Proyecto Kieu is an NGO focused in local development in the geographical area of La Sagra (Toledo) in Spain. Since 2010, together with the youngsters in our community, we promote awareness, active participation, critical thinking and ultimately self-social development. We've established strong alliances with local municipalities in several villages in our area with the aim to multiply opportunities for youth in the territory and bring in new resources. The overall strategy of PK in La Sagra County is to combine the resources for the young population in the area and start cooperating among the villages to make the best out of the existing possibilities and create collective new ones optimizing the resources available.
This territory in Central Spain is formed by 31 different villages, most of them under 5.000 inhabitants, some of them rural, some of them pre-urban, and all sharing the circumstance of having a really big young population with a strong lack of opportunities and activities for themselves. That's why PK makes the young people from 14 to 35 years old its primary target and therefore the main engine in the organization is to find ways for widening our youngster’s life options and models; reinforce their active participation in the community; empower them, inspire them, help them to develop their passions and build themselves for the present and the future. In the process we pass along, practice and create tools for social change towards a most fair and dignified life for all.
Local activities: our organization's main focus is the sustainable development of our area through youth work. We organize activities for and together with local young people. Many of the youngsters who participate in our activities experience different kind of socio-economic obstacles, cultural differences, live in municipalities with lack of transport and other public services. Our main local project are the YOUTH CENTERS we manage in 11 municipalities in our area. Those are places where young people could engage in the activities we organize, could share, propose their own ideas and be creative. The projects we organize for local youth in the youth centers treat important topics as ENVIRONMENTAL education and awareness, GENDER EQUALITY, LGBTQ+ topics, HUMAN RIGHTS and VOLUNTEERING always with the methodology of NON-FORMAL EDUCATION.
In terms of Erasmus + and European Solidarity Corps programs: We have a quality label to lead and support VOLUNTEERING activities. Our organization is actively hosting international volunteers who support our different actions and is also constantly looking for close partners to send volunteers to.
We also count with accreditation to organize Erasmus+ YOUTH EXCHANGES. Our main focus is on the youth exchanges for minors of age (14 to 17 years old), as a first opportunity for an international experience.
Since 2014 we've been exploring the KA2 E+ projects possibilities. We've participated in several TC about it and made three different feasibility trips with different organizations that have given us the opportunity to understand a lot about the needs and resources of our own organization into this actions. In 2015 we started as partners a KA2 project from where we are learning a lot about its dynamics and procedures in terms of management and quality; since then we have also developed our own KA2 initiatives as coordinators too.
We’ve recently successfully finished a KA2 project coordinated by us, called “Open fields” , which was focused on the artistic expression of young people.