About the project

The project YouthNET 4 News, financed by Youth in Action Programme, Action 4.4, aimed at adopting and applying some of the tools and instruments of media, PR and marketing into youth work with the purpose to create a better image of the youth NGOs. Media has great impact on youth activities, youngsters’ perceptions and beliefs, the formation of popular culture. Project partners cooperated to introduce and apply the variety of opportunities that media provides in order to positively influence youngsters in becoming responsible and active citizens by developing their critical thinking and personal, social and professional  skills. Media appears to have an increasing role in the daily life of civil society organisations and in particular of youth organisations as by using appropriately its potential we can reach a wide circle of youngsters, even disadvantaged ones. The project tested and proposed solutions for youth organisations and youngsters how to use different means of media to promote their activities, to access information, to send out messages to the public and raise awareness, to disseminate any type of information and to stimulate their active citizenship and personal development.  

The event was held in Italy, it was a seminar for exchanging good practices in the NGO field in working with mass media. During the seminar new ideas and proposals how youth NGOs can cooperate successfully with regional and national media were discussed. Through interesting workshops the participants shared their good or bad practices in developing their own media channels and learned from each-other how to “position” their NGOs in the modern society and “brand” the services that they provide. As a result of their team work, on the 9th of May a flash mob at San Marco’s square in Venice was organized and held. The participants surprised hundreds of visitors with the extraordinary performance of “Ode to Joy” (the Anthem of Europe) and delivered a message to them to remember United Europe’s birthday.

The seminar was followed by a training course for youth media officers, which was held in Austria. The main objective of the training course was to raise awareness towards the main methods and approaches of media tools that can be successfully used to attract the public attention. Participants obtained competences on writing articles and press releases, developing “catchy” posters, making video and radio interviews and implementing successful public actions. Study visits to the biggest radio and TV companies in Vienna introduced to the participants the way media works in practical point of view. Young media officers took their first interviews from local people on topics concerning youth work. A flash mob with the message “Be media literate” was performed in front of Saint Stephen’s Dome in Vienna.

More than 120 participants were involved in the project activities and 370 more youth workers and youngsters were indirectly impacted by the project outcomes. As a result of the teamwork and the contribution of all project partners and participants, a guidebook on media literacy, an interactive website of the project and various promotional materials were developed and disseminated throughout partner organisations and members of our networks. The creative aspect of the project was observed in the way it reflected the novelties and innovations in the fields of media, PR and marketing and consequently apply those new tools into youth work. It is crucial for youth organisations to have the appropriate knowledge how to adopt the new media tools with the purpose to promote their activities, attract new members, make their actions more visible and positively impact their target communities.