European Voluntary Service - Hosting project Present data and direct observations of our staff show that pupils in Arad coming from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to be excluded by their peers, to have lower achievements in school and to suffer both at personal and professional level. We envision Arad as a community in which youngsters are fully supported to achieve their unique potential, by developing personally, professionally and socially, irrespective of their status. In the light of the present situation and our long terms commitments, we have decided to act for reducing the marginalization and aggression of young people based on them belonging to different vulnerable groups or simply on them being different in appearance or in the way they act. For this, our objectives are to: - increase with 30% the inclusion of marginalized youngsters from Arad, with a special focus on the following groups: Roma, Muslim (especially asylum seekers), persons with disability. -reduce by half the percent of pupils who would bully their colleagues based on them being "different" than the others. Following our needs analysis, we have contacted three long term EVS partners: VCS Skopje FYROM, Arbalet Turkey, Attiva Mente Italy. Mille Cunti from Spain joined us after we promoted our initiative. Together we developed following activities in Arad, Romania 1st flow of hosted volunteers: from 01-11-2017 to 01-06-2018, for the school year 2017/2018 2nd flow of hosted volunteers: from 01-08-2018 to 01-03-2019, for the school year 2018/2019 For each stage, 8 volunteers, 2 from each of the countries: FYROM, Turkey, Spain and Italy The hosted volunteers will undertake following on-going set of activities: - Specific educational activities for combating exclusion of vulnerable groups and bullying in schools - Peer education workshops for reducing bullying and promoting diversity - Activities for counteracting hate speech - Advocacy and social activism campaigns for promoting diversity - Peer education workshops for inclusion of persons with disabilities - Peer education workshops on analysing the dissemination of fake news - Volunteering for NGOs in Arad and Timisoara that are working in the field of social inclusion Volunteers are working most often in teams of two, and will be assigned to different schools or organisations working with youth and vulnerable groups. They will be empowered to plan and implement the activities, using non-formal anti-discrimination methods, inspired by the 4 programmes, but also methods that they will identify themselves. The project will rely on their autonomy in the implementation of the activities, while the HO will still be monitoring their effectiveness and provide support. In terms of local impact (especially in relation to the 2000 local beneficiaries) the project will open the community to diversity, creating a more inclusive environment in 10 local schools and reducing the marginalisation of vulnerable groups. Also, given that the direct beneficiaries will be interacting with other members of the community and will also be encouraged to take social action, the 2000 youngsters will contribute to the creation of a critical mass of people that support a more inclusive community for vulnerable groups. Overall, the project is promoting social inclusion and solidarity in the local community, opening it to diversity.

The main objective of our project was to increase employment opportunities for young people by providing advice in order for them to make informed choices about their professional trajectory. These career counseling services included assessing different professions / trades, organizing study visits for exploring them, and training in horizontal areas. We have thus thought that if young people have a clear picture of what they like to do, about their inclinations in certain areas, it will be easier for them to choose the right job. The main activities implemented were the creation of the first vocational guidance and counseling service for young people, the counseling of 120 young people corresponding to their inclinations for various jobs, their aspirations and the development of skills necessary for the labor market through non-formal education, peer education and volunteering. A total of 120 students from schools such as Elena Ghiba Birta National College, Dimitrie Ţichindeal Pedagogical High School and Iosif Moldovan High School were involved.

The "Refugee crisis" has become one of the most important challenges that the EU is facing. Both at European and local level, refugees, especially the ones with Muslim background, are victims of discrimination and exclusion. EU residents are becoming less tolerant towards the ones that are different than they and different forms of radicalisation start to emerge. The migration issue has the potential of weakening or even braking the EU (the most compelling example being Brexit) In response to this, we have considered that we need to be more involved in improving the perception on migrants by promoting their true culture, the respect for diversity, the inter-religious dialogue and tolerance. In extent to this, in order to generate a long term effect, we want to empower young people to actively contribute to this effort by helping them develop the skills they need to become promoters of this change and by helping them to multiply their results, so that in the long term we will get a "snowball effect" of the project. In order to achieve our goals, starting September 2017 we aim: - to train 8 people (2/country) for developing the competencies they need for organising non-formal activities that will support our goal; - to organise at least 8 local activities for promoting the true cultural values of Muslim refugees and asylum seekers but also for promoting diversity in general; - to multiply our results at international level among at least 25 youngsters from 5 communities in Europe and Asia; In this project 8 volunteers from Italy, Spain, and Turkey will spend 7 months in Arad, Romania to organize a large number of anti-discrimination activities with youngsters from different high-schools from our city.

An increasing concern in the international arena was and still is the staggering figure of unemployed young people, even for those who have received a higher education degree, the gap between formal education and the labor market is too wide. Our project "Improving competences for the labor market", aimed to provide youngsters from different countries with the necessary tools to create a long term effect in their local communities, and influence young people to be more proactive in the professional context. The objectives of our project were to organize a mobility where participants could exchange and discover best practices to promote employment among young people, paying special attention to competences that improve opportunities in the professional field, and to provide youngsters with new practical skills to encourage self-development among young people. The project included four partners, coming from countries with a low employment rate among young people. Youngsters were given the chance to enhance their existing skills in the field of professional networking and self-development. At the local level employ ability was fostered and this in return will have an exponential effect on increasing opportunities for young people in a transnational context. 23 young people from Spain, Romania, Turkey and Macedonia participated in this youth exchange organised in Arad, Romania between the 1st and 13th of July 2017