Photo: Maria Nykyri
14.01.2020
The international Youth for Safer Youth project studies safety concerns, needs for training and the best ways to reach the youth in the Baltic Sea Region. The project Kick-off was organized in Liepaja, Latvia on 10.-12.12.2019. Youth from Finland, Latvia and Lithuania participated in the meeting together with safety experts from several cities in the Baltic Sea Region.
More information:
- Communication Officer Maria Nykyri
- Follow and discuss in Twitter: #Youth4SafetyBSR
- The website of the Council of the Baltic Sea States
- Youth for Safer Youth on our website
The main aim of the project is to research safety concerns of the youth and the best ways to reach them in the Baltic Sea Region. Safety experts together with youth representatives will develop a questionnaire in which safety concerns and information about how to best reach the youth will be discovered.
During this project the collaboration between safety experts and youth will be a crucial point. The project prepares for the larger scale project in which youth in the Baltic Sea region will be educated about
how to increase their safety in physical and virtual world.
Presentations, workshopping and getting to know each other in the Kick-off
Many of the project partners met each other for the first time in the Kick-off. During the three days the youth and the safety experts changed ideas regarding safety and learned about safety measures in different BSR countries from each other. In the beginning of the meeting project partners presented their background reports concerning previous research about youth safety carried out in their home countries. In Finland the safety concerns of the youth have been researched e.g. within the themes of living environment, violence, sexual assaults and harassment, terrorism, well-being, bullying and fire safety.
After the presentations the participants started with workshops in which the themes and execution of the questionnaire that will be created in the project were discussed. The themes that the youth considered the most important for the questionnaire were similar in Latvia, Lithuania and Finland eventhough some differences were found. The youth pointed out that they want a questionnaire that is short and pithy and relevant for their everyday life. Schools were seen as beneficial distribution channels for the questionnaire, but also social media resonated with the youth. Also the protection of privacy and anonymity were discussed in the workshop. Safety related questions can be very intimate and delicate for an individual so people can feel doubtful about participating in the questionnaire.
Photo: Maria Nykyri
The Kick-off was organized back-to-back with the UBC Safe Cities Commission meeting so several safety experts from the Baltic Sea Region cities participated in the workshop. The Youth for Safer Youth project continues with summarizing the results of the workshop and creating the safety questionnaire for the youth, based on the summary. The questionnaire will be published in spring 2020 in the Baltic Sea Region. The next project meeting will be organized in April 2020 in Espoo, Finland.
Photo: Maria Nykyri
Duration and budget
The duration of the project is 1.9.2019-31.8.2020.
The budget of the project is 50 547 € from which 12 612 € is addressed to Southwest Finland Emergency Services.
The Project is co-funded by the Council of The Baltic Sea States by 45 492 €.
Partners
Lead Partner:
Liepaja Municipal Police, Latvia
Other partners:
Espoo Youth Services, Finland
Kaunas City Municipality, Lithuania
Liepaja Children and Youth Centre, Latvia
Southwest Finland Emergency Services, Finland
