The Rural Youth Europe board has received 8 project entries for the Rural Youth Project of 2011 competition. Project entries have been received from Austrian Rural Youth, Danish Young Farmers, Estonian 4H, Finnish 4H (2 entries), Latvian 4H, Young Farmers of Ulster, and Wales Young Farmers Clubs. All the projects are of very high quality and demonstrate that our member organisations are doing very creative and valuable projects at the grass-roots level. It will be a hard decision for the judges! The winning projects will be announced early next week.

Now running in it's third year, the best practise competition is targetted at Rural Youth Europe members with the aim of finding innovative and creative projects organised by young people in rural areas.

The prize is a Youth Trophy and participation of 2 winning team members to the Rally 2012 in Poland. The projects will be presented in the spring edition of Rural Youth INFO magazine and on the Rural Youth Europe website. The prize will be presented at the Rally 2012 by the Chairman of Rural Youth Europe.

Project requirements:

• The aim of your project must be in line with the overall purpose of your organisation. You must clearly state in which ways your project will benefit your organisation, your members and the local community.
• Duration of your project must be a minimum of one month (either in planning or actual event days) and the majority of work carried out during 2011.
• The main part of the project must be based on the voluntary work of young people.
• The project should involve a minimum of 20 persons either as project participants or as project beneficiaries.

The Youth Project of the Year 2011 will be judged using the following criteria:

• Level of innovativeness and creativity in all project phases such as general idea and conceptualisation, implementation, communication and advertising.
• Benefit to your organisation, members and local community.
• Level of involvement of young people in the planning and implementation of the project.
• Level of volunteer contribution in the preparation and in the project itself.

The application must be sent by the member organisation and not directly by individuals.

Deadline for application is: 15 February 2012 to office(at)ruralyoutheurope.com.

The selection decision will be made by the Rural Youth Europe board and announced at the end of February 2012.

Please find attached the call for projects and the application form.

Attachments:

Youth_Project_2011_announcement.doc