Division ACTION 3 — YOUTH INITIATIVES

In order to encourage initiative and creativity among young people, the Community will support projects in which young people actively and directly participate in innovative and creative schemes and in schemes which focus on the social commitment of young people at local, regional, national or European level. These projects will allow young people to develop their initiative and to put into practice activities of their own devising in which they play the key roles.

The Community will support initiatives designed to help young volunteers to make the best possible use of the experience they have gained during their period of voluntary service and to encourage their active integration into society. Those initiatives taken by young people after completing their European voluntary service will allow them to launch and promote activities of a social, cultural, sociocultural and economic nature and/or aim at their personal development. Priority access will be given to those young people most in need.

Support will aim at encouraging extension of these projects to include similar initiatives conducted in other Member States in order to strengthen their transnational nature and greatly expand exchanges of experience and cooperation between young people. This aid may include organising meetings of young promoters of Europe-wide initiatives. Financial aid may be granted towards the effective establishment of stable, transnational partnerships between such projects.