Implementing the European Youth Work Agenda in Greece

Olga, historically what has youth work looked like in Greece?

I have been involved in youth work since 2003, and for me youth work in Greece has always been about people supporting and empowering young people towards their personal and professional development. However, it has simply been about the people doing the work, there has been no recognition from any authorities at professional level.

Youth workers did not have any certificate or certification process to show that they were a youth worker. There was not and could not be any recognition of their experience because they were employed as office workers. They could not prove that they worked with young people even if they were in a youth organisation because by law, they were office workers.

Can you tell us about the current situation of youth work in Greece?

This is an exciting and important time for youth work in Greece. We have entered a situation where the first official steps are being taken for the recognition of youth work and for the development of a professional framework of the competencies that a youth worker should have.

At the moment (summer 2023) it is just a draft, but we are hopeful that it will reach fulfilment. However, there are elections in Greece this year so we will have to see if things go backwards or go forwards. But even reaching a draft stage is a big positive step.

What has happened so far regarding the recognition of youth work and the Bonn Process in Greece?

Great things have happened for Greece because of the Bonn Process. Most importantly, it gave us a very powerful advocacy tool because we could now push the government and the national authorities with our views about how we (as a country) have to implement the European Youth Work Agenda.

Recognition has been a really long journey, I mean like a long long struggle with no real visible results up to now. But the moment things changed was in 2022, the European Year of Youth. The Government realised that they should do something since this was a European Union project. They chose to contact us, the Hellenic Youth Worker Association, and invited us to be part of the steering committee for the Year of Youth here in Greece.

With the Bonn Process as an advocacy tool and with our position on the steering committee, we had some level of power to push the recognition of youth work onto the agenda. We were saying, “you cannot have a European Year of Youth without recognising the work of youth workers since these are the people who are working with and for the young people”. So that was the beginning, the committee made it a priority to move towards the first steps of social and political recognition of youth work in Greece.

For the moment I can say that we are going on a good track. Our authorities in Greece are trying to identify the competencies that a youth worker should have, this will create the framework for political recognition. Then we will have a map of what kind of professional pathways a youth worker should follow. They are currently exploring if youth workers should take exams or if certificates can come from experience or participation and so on…

The next step will be to envisage the creation of a pool of youth workers in Greece. At the moment, the authorities are looking at both the European Training Strategy Competence Model for youth workers and the Council of Europe Youth Work Portfolio. This is such a huge achievement.

For us it is vital to combine Greece and Europe. We don't want to have recognition in Greece that has nothing to do with European standards and other youth work realities. We want to compare our ideas in Greece with other models and also contribute our ideas to other youth work models. There needs to be a harmony between the Greek reality and the European reality.

What else has come out of the Bonn Process for Greece?

At European level the Bonn Process and the European Youth Work Agenda have brought together nine national youth work umbrella organisations and associations of youth workers, including us. We got together at one table and discussed about the future of youth work in Europe.

As a result we have created a project that has four goals: the first is to research about the situation of youth work in Europe; the second is to explore the situation of youth worker associations at national level across Europe; the third is to create a group for discussing about the professional development of youth workers; and the fourth is to establish a “European Youth Worker Association”.

The purpose of such an Association is to advocate and support youth workers to fight for recognition in their countries where youth work is not recognised and to have all youth workers being part of a common ground in Europe.

Where would you like to see youth work in Greece in five years time?

In five years, I want to see somebody who has a paper and a salary that says that this is the salary of a youth worker.

The second biggest thing I would like to see change is the social recognition of youth work. I cannot even explain to my mother what I do, I mean my job as a youth worker. So, this is one of my main wishes, that Greek youth workers can explain what they are doing and that people will understand.

If we achieve this, I think we have done a lot.

Anything else in the future that you would like to see for youth work?

Yes, I simply hope that I will not still be fighting for youth workers recognition because it will be a normal part of societies reality.

Olga Kyriakidou

Olga Kyriakidou is a youth worker from Greece. She is a representative of the Hellenic Youth Worker Association and the national contact point for the Bonn Process.