An evaluation of the YOUTH programme Action 1 projects approved by the Maltese National Agency between 2001 and 2006

Abstract

In their promotional video celebrating twenty years of European Youth Programmes, the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Commission claimed that: “For two decades the Youth Programmes have been moving the young generation culturally, socially and politically, with a great impact on the lives of young people, youth workers and society as a whole.” This statement inspired our study. What were Youth Programmes? Why did they have such a great impact? Were Maltese young people participating in these programmes, and if they were, could it be said that their cultural, social and political attitudes had been swayed by the same positive ripple effect? By the end of our project we hoped to have shed some light on the local situation. Structure of the Study: In order to start answering some of the questions we had posed, we decided to embark on an overview of Youth Programmes over the twenty years they have been established, but realised along the way, that these initiatives were not being carried out in a vacuum. Youth Programmes had found themselves embedded in major European events and other significant milestones in the field of youth that were occurring concurrently. It had become impossible to separate one from the others. In Chapter 2 of our study, we have tried to highlight these historic developments in the wider European sphere. For the next stage we turned to the local context. The co-operation and encouragement of the European Union Programmes Agency in Malta was invaluable from this point onwards. Malta had become directly involved with Youth Programmes in 2001, when the YOUTH 2000 - 2006 Programme was just underway in Europe. It was this initiation date that guided our starting point for years under study while the duration of the YOUTH Programme, until December 2006, pointed to our cut-off year. 2007 had seen another Programme - Youth in Action come into effect, for which it will run until 2013. The YOUTH Programme comprised five Actions, but we chose to focus mainly on Action 1 - Youth Exchanges and Youth Encounters, in an effort to further narrow down the scope of our study. With the background and focus of our study firmly established, our next step was the consideration of a research strategy. Our evaluation was going to be based on information we would be gathering from the archives relating to all Youth Exchanges and Youth Encounters that had taken place during these six years. Chapter 3 describes the data collecting phase, and our rationale behind the chosen methods. In Chapter 4, we present the results of the gathered data, and our analyses based on the patterns observed. This section is divided into two. In the first half, our submissions are supported by a number of graphs and tables, whereas in the second part, aggregated content was less possible, although we have endeavoured to strengthen our claims by reproducing actual examples elicited from the files studied. We conclude our project by launching into a discussion of the overall situation. In Chapter 5, we present a list of recommendations resulting from our study ‘An evaluation of the Youth Exchanges and Youth Encounters under Actions 1.1 and 1.2 within Youth for Europe, as approved by the Maltese National Agency within the YOUTH Community Action Programme between 2001 and 2006’