Erasmus+ project on social change in communities has ended

Three years after its launch in 2015, the Erasmus+ NEETU project – “Re-mobilizing experienced and resourceful seniors as NEET brokers to help young people change depressed NEET situations” has ended. The project facilitated interactions between senior citizens and NEET youth.

The project is one of the first attempts in Europe to systematically put the 21st century social innovation agenda to work: how can social change be brought about through new citizen-driven alliances in the communities, and by mobilizing available resources without putting pressure on public services?

The project combines some of the most important social and educational challenges in the 21st century.  One of the aims of the project was to involve the increasing number of senior citizens with social and educational potential in inspiring and mentoring NEET youth. Since senior citizens are known to have developed considerable experience throughout their working lives and to have acquired useful networks in their communities, those resources were used to generate dynamic interactions between the two “out of the economy” population groups.

The project was implemented by nine different organizations, in five different regions: Romania, Slovenia, Italy, Spain and France.

The role of the University of Tartu consisted of drafting policy recommendations based on the results of the project, outlining further changes to the current European framework and the organizational practices of community actors in order to ensure the successful implementation of the NEETU approach.

The final Lessons Learnt policy paper can be accessed here. 

A video documenting the project experience can be accessed here.

For more information on the project, please contact Olena Nedozhogina, olena.nedozhogina@ut.ee. 

 This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Forwarded by:
Heidi Mõttus
Marketing and Communications Assistant
Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies
University of Tartu 
heidi.mottus@ut.ee