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SALTO Eastern Europe and Caucasus

The SALTO Awards 2021 Ceremony was held on November 11th, 2021. It brought a culmination of the 5-month journey, throughout which SALTO Awards Team collected about 150 exciting projects in 5 nomination categories, engaged 25 diverse jury members in evaluation, and prepared for a new approach to the ceremony. The SALTO Awards 2021 were co-organised by SALTO Participation & Information RC and SALTO European Solidarity Corps RC.

A number of projects carried out by organisations from the Eastern European and Caucasus region were among the finalists. Among them Digi Youth from Armenia (winner of the Media and Information Literacy category) and Reimagining Recognition from Moldova (winner of Digital Transformation category) and Start from Georgia (finalist of Youth Participation category). Let’s take a closer look at them.

Digi Youth

Armenia

Media and Information Literacy (winner)

Digi Youth is a program that aims to digitally empower and make the voices of young people in Armenia, especially minorities and those living in remote regions, heard.

In a traditional society like Armenia, being young is hard. But being a young minority from a remote rural area is much harder. It all escalated when covid suddenly kicked in, leaving the minorities in a strangely cold digital environment, full of misinformation and cyberbullying.

A group of young activists – Armenian Progressive Youth – felt that something had to be done, and fast. That’s how DigiYouth was born. A programme that aims to digitally empower and raise the voice of young people of Armenia, especially minorities and those living in remote regions. The brave participants created 4 powerful social media campaigns, 5 nationwide radio-programs and video-podcasts and an impactful youth-led podcasting channel.

The project was financially supported through the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe.

“In Armenia there are many young people who are raising their voices but they are not heard. Nowadays, the situation is very unstable in the country, and different propaganda machines are working to mislead people — especially young people. It is therefore especially important to develop their critical thinking skills, so that they can analyse and understand what is happening before taking action and participating.”

Nelly Paytyan, Project coordinator

Learn more about the project:

Reimagining Recognition

Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Lithuania, Finland, Ireland

Digital Transformation (winner)

Reimagining Recognition is an open digital badge system designed to develop the capacity of youth work organisations in recognising and validating the activities and competencies of young people and youth workers. The project was coordinated by the Moldovan MillenniuM Training and Development Institute under the EU Youth Programme Priority Digital Transformation and carried out by partners from Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Lithuania, Finland, and Ireland.

The Millenium Training And Developement Institute proposed the wider use of an online tool called Open Badges. It looks like a nice digital badge on your profile but it’s actually a reliable online proof of your formal but also non-formal skills, achievements and learning experiences. The Millenium Institute, joined by partners from six other countries organized over a thousand young people and 400 youth workers to research and prototype the Open Badge system. That’s how the Reimagining Recognition project was born.

The project was implemented from 2018 to 2021 with financial support of the Key Action 2 of the Erasmus+ Youth, the Capacity building in the field of youth.

“Many of us are involved in the life of our communities without recognising that we are doing good things. If we are conscious about our participation, it becomes meaningful participation, and gives us real opportunities for personal and professional development.”

Alexandra Isaicul, project coordinator

Learn more about the project:

Start

Georgia

Youth Participation (finalist)

Youth Participation is a story of an entire Algeti Youth Centre established in a very short time, in a region inhabited by ethnic minorities in the south-east of Georgia. The project considered the development of a youth centre and grass-root youth movement in Algeti village, Marneuli region of Georgia.

The project financially supported by the Georgian Youth Agency and implemented by the Umbrella organisation has also won another competition, in frames of the Rural Youth Europe as the best one in 2020.

SALTO Awards is an annual European celebration of youth projects done by exceptional teams. It is funded by the Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes.