1 – 9 September, 2016
Usak, Turkey

The Association EPEKA, the Social Enterprise, is a partner in the international youth exchange “Take a role and change the future”. The project runs from 1 to 9 September 2016 in Usak, Turkey. 39 participants from three countries will take part: a coordinator from Turkey and partners from Bulgaria and Slovenia.

Youth unemployment in Turkey has been at least twice as high as adult unemployment for a long time. This phenomenon shows that there is not much interest in reducing the percentage of youth unemployment in Turkey. Moreover, these needs for unemployed young people are so great that it would be necessary to formulate a change in the overall economic and social policy. International organisations stress the need to bring all institutions together to achieve the desired goal. At the age of life that is supposed to be the most efficient or productive, young people think that unemployment is their destiny and give up taking action and looking for a job. In the town of Uşak, where the project will be implemented and where young people are directly affected, according to a statement read out by the Mayor of Uşak every September, job requests increase by a factor of 2.5 every year and have so far risen to 30 000 people. 65% of these young people live in the municipality of Uşak. Young people from Uşak municipality are thus organising this youth exchange entitled “Take a role and change the future” in order to find a solution to the situation.

In this youth exchange for 8 days, 39 young people, with the support of three NGOs experienced in the field of youth unemployment, will exchange experiences on how to get unemployed people/young people back into social life. The project will help them to feel confident and aware of their abilities: different workshops will be organised by peers and older people who have faced and overcome the same problem and will contribute by presenting a good practice example to their personal development through different joint training activities related to this topic.

The project to be implemented in Uşak will be an experiment for both the participating organisations of the partner country and our youth groups.

The project is supported by the EU Erasmus+ programme

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