The 3rd Bonn Process Meet-up took place online on 28 and 29 March and invited all youth work actors across Europe to exchange on current challenges, develop joint ideas on how to meet them, and share own concrete projects and practices.
The Bonn Process Meet-up is an annual online event that invites the youth work community of practice to explore and better understand the eight thematic priority areas of the European Youth Work Agenda.
Youth work is currently facing many challenges across Europe. The Agenda as a strategic framework for strengthening and developing youth work, provides a framework for youth work actors to address these challenges through the eight areas together across Europe.
The Meet-up thus provides an overview about recent developments in the Bonn Process – the mechanism for implementing the European Youth Work Agenda – and what is happening across Europe related to each priority area.
“The Bonn Process is important in Portugal because it helps to create a recognised youth work framework, guiding the quality of youth work practice, training, recognition and validation of the diverse 'youth work' experiences and approach."
Dulce Marques, Pedagogical Advisor/Youth Worker and Trainer at Lisbon Youth Center
It addresses all those who are engaging in youth work development, who are wondering what is happening in the Bonn Process all over Europe, for people who are excited to share their own ideas with others, for those looking for inspiration, and for those who want to network with like-minded people.
The Meet-up is a basis for exchanging ideas on challenges, developing joint ideas on how to meet them, and for sharing and advancing concrete projects and practice connected to the eight priority areas.
At the beginning of this third Meet-up, team members of the European Service Center for the Bonn Process, provided updates about the Bonn Process and highlighted the importance of the existing engagement of the whole community in an uplifting input titled “You are the Bonn Process”.
Laszlo Milutinovits, the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership representative, is responsible for projects that support the implementation of the European Youth Work Agenda. He explained about some of the projects the Youth Partnership is currently working on and introduced the Visible Value symposium, ‘Growing youth work in Europe’. The symposium will take place at the end of May and is a part of the ongoing implementation of the European Youth Work Agenda.
Jacob Kornbeck, Policy Officer for the European Commission, spoke about initiatives and measures that have been or are being implemented by the Commission to support the implementation of the European Youth Work Agenda.
“The European Youth Work Agenda is a tool that I use very often in communication with decision makers to explain the importance of youth work."
Nedeljka Ivošević, Journalist and Youth Worker. NAPOR. Member of Serbian Governmental Expert team for the implementation of the Bonn Process. Serbia
On the first day of the Meet-up, participants were able to share their youth work related practices, each practice was under the umbrella of one of the eight priority areas. This enabled the participants to map what practices are happening under which of the priority areas:
The second day of the Meet-up provided space for the participants to explore the current state of their work related to the eight priority areas and to consider future directions. Subjects included the inclusion of Ukrainian refugees in locally based youth work, the development of quality standards for youth work, recognition of youth work at the European level, youth criminality and youth leisure, digitalisation, and establishing the Bonn Process in different countries.
The Bonn Process is a major community process. The more people become active, the more powerful and successful it becomes! A report on the 3rd Bonn Process Meet-up will be published in the coming weeks. It will provide further insights into current developments and relevant topics that the youth work community of practice identified at the Meet-up and showcase concrete examples of existing practices and possible next steps.
If you want to know how you can become involved, you can contact the European Service Center for the Bonn Process. If you want to stay up to date, learn about how the Bonn Process is coming along across Europe and don’t want to miss upcoming events, subscribe to the regularly published newsletter.