Report from the InterCity Youth conference
”InterAction for Action”,
Nov 2-4, 2015 Gothenburg, Sweden
Monday 2 November
Opening ceremony and plenary speeches
InterCity Youth together with the Swedish
network KEKS arranged the international
conference INTERACTION FOR ACTION 2-4
November 2015 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The
conference was co-financed by the Swedish
Agency for Youth and Civil Society –
MUCF, and JUGEND für Europa, the
German National Agency.
The opening speakers were:
Jonas Agdur, Chair InterCity Youth and
KEKS, who talked about youth work as the art
of releasing the force within young people and
making them part of the solution.
Mariya Voyvodova, Deputy Mayor of
Gothenburg, informed about youth work in
Gothenburg and the importance of youth
participation and influence.
Roger Mörtvik, State Secretary, Swedish
Ministry of Education and Research, focused
on learning and the importance of giving
young people access to different forms of
learning opportunities.
Ellen Durst, Policy Officer at the European
Commission, was talking about European
cooperation in the youth sector and different
support systems. She also highlighted
InterCity Youth as a good initiative for future
cooperation.
The first key note speaker was Claudius Siebel
from JUGEND für Europa who presented the
project ”Municipality goes international” and
what it takes to create a sustainable and
successful international work at local level.
The second Key note speaker was Dr John
Bamber from Center for Effective Services,
Ireland, who was ”Speaking evidence to youth
work - the case of non-formal learning and
employability” and was providing illustrative
examples of practice from across Europe.
(Dr Bamber spoke on Tuesday due to flight
delays.)
Link to John’s presentation
The conference had over 200 participants from
17 different countries who had the chance to
go to 13 different seminars and learn about
youth work from various parts of Europe and
to make new contacts for future common
project within the InterCity Youth network.
Dynamic exercise
The first day ended with a dynamic exercise
where the participants discussed “the
contributions of youth work” in relation to
“developed attitudes”, “soft skills”, “practical
skills” and “contributions to society”. The
answers were documented on a banderol that
was displayed in the conference hall.
Being in a dynamic mode the participants then
went to the conference dinner where day also
were entertained by local youth!
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more resilient to violent extremism. Zan
Jankovski and Haisam A Rahman,
coordinators against violent radicalisation, city
of Gothenburg, talked about how the city of
Gothenburg works with
radicalisation/extremism and the challenges
and possibilities youth workers face in this.
Link to Elisabeth’s presentation
Link to Zan’s and Haisam’s presentation
Tuesday 3 November- Seminars
The day started with Claudius Siebel and
Jonas Agdur giving a plenary introduction to
InterCity Youth and Erasmus+ as a platform
for future cooperation. They also stressed the
idea behind the seminars as starting points for
new projects and presented a sheet where these
ideas could be documented.
Link to presentation
Then followed the seminars:
1. Youth work and quality development
Jonas Agdur, Chair of the European expert
group on youth work quality systems,
presented the expert group’s report and
introduced a discussion on future cooperation
on quality development.
Link to Jonas’ presentation
2. Learning in youth work
Lasse Siurala, Adjunct Professor of the Aalto
University (Helsinki) and lecturer at Tallinn
University discussed how we could further
develop and promote youth work as a field for
learning. He gave examples of recent
conquests of non-formal learning and pointed
out the threats and possibilities of validation
and certification of non-formal learning.
Link to Lasse’s presentation
4. Empowering young migrants
Rebekah Tegene, former Peer Advisor, shared
her conclusions from IOM's ACCESS Project
which was conducted simultaneously in five
different European countries, all aiming to
empower migrant youth to actively participate
in decision making and influencing issues
most important to them.
Link to Rebekah’s presentation
5. European Youth Capitals
Representatives from the cities of
Thessaloniki, Varna and Braga told us how
they worked together with young people and
other stakeholders to become European Youth
Capitals and how this have affected the youth
work in their respective cities.
Link to Thessaloniki presentation
Link to Varna presentation
Link to Braga presentation
6. Municipal youth work strategies
Soultana Stamouli from Thessaloniki, Stefan
Fischer from Munich and Tommi Laitio from
Helsinki presented their respective municipal
youth work strategies and opened up for
questions and debate on the subject.
Link to Soultana’s presentation
Link to Stefan’s presentation
Link to Tommi’s presentation
A. Youth work in Sweden and KEKS
Jenny Anderson, manager of KEKS, talked
about youth work in Sweden and presented
KEKS quality assurance systems, its rationale,
tools and effects on youth work.
Link to Jenny’s presentation
3. Working against violent
radicalisation/extremism
Elisabeth Modée, Deputy director at the unit
for democracy and civil society, Ministry of
Culture, talked about actions to make society
B. Youth work in Flanders and VVJ
Kaï Van Nieuwenhove, director of the Flemish
federation of local youth officers, VVJ, gave
an overview of youth work in Flanders,
Belgium, and how over 300 municipalities
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cooperate around the development of
professional and voluntary youth work. He
focused on the local level and the main tasks
of municipal youth officers.
Link to Kaï’s presentation
C. Youth work in Bulgaria
Giorgi Simeonov, director Sustainable
Development and European integration, and
Mircho Hristov, Youth Center Manager, from
the city of Stara Zagora spoke about youth
work in Bulgaria integration of roma youth.
Link to Mircho’s presentation
Link to Giorgi’s presentation
D. Ideas in Action in youth work – linking
theory and practice
Dr John Bamber helped participants to see
how theory can inform youth work as a field
of practice. It also showed how theory could
be developed in their own work as part of an
evidence-informed approach.
Link to John’s presentation
E. “Municipality goes international”
Claudius Siebel, JUGEND für Europa,
presented the pilot project “Municipality goes
international” and held a discussion on which
role Learning mobility can play in youth work
and how municipalities can act to strengthen
Learning mobility.
help from different members of KEKS. He
then invited them all on stage to have a small
gift and a big applause!
While the seminar hosts still remained on
stage Massimo Capano from Italy joined Jonas
on stage and proudly announced that the
InterCity conference 2016 will be held in his
hometown Cinisello Balsamo! Then, as a
surprise, the first honorary participant was
selected through lottery among the seminar
hosts.
Wednesday 4 November
The third day was dedicated to study visits
mainly for international participants, but many
Swedish youth workers attended the study
visits as well.
The conference ended with a common lunch
where the experiences from the study visits
were discussed and plans for the future were
made!
Wish you where there? Remember how it
was?
See the film from the conference here!
Link to Claudius’ presentation
F. Working with LGBT-youth
Tanya Charif, youth worker and member of
Gothenburg City LGBT-council, presented
GIA, Gays in Angered, a youth centre for
LGBT-youth and initiates a discussion on
future cooperation on LGBT-youth work.
G. Youth work in Finland and the Kanuuna
network
Annina Lehtiö-Vainio, director of youth
services, City of Turku, talked about youth
work in Finland, the Kanuuna network and its
work with peer evaluation.
Link to Annina’s presentation
After seminars Jonas Agdur summoned up by
saying that this conference once again showed
the power of networks and of cooperation. It
had never been possible without the voluntary
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