Erasmus+ Projects
Erasmus+ projects are not just for students, there is a wide range of opportunities and, one of them, are short-term projects that are available for young people from 13 to 30 years old, but there are some exceptions and people over 30 years old can still take part on these Erasmus+ projects.
There is no limit on the number of projects that each young person can take part in, so it is possible to integrate multiple Youth Exchanges and Training Courses with the most varied topics – sustainability, creative writing, cultural heritage, sports, among many others. The workshops and sessions carried out during these activities are always based on non-formal and informal education methods.
More Details
Requirements
There are a few sub-divisions in these programmes and each has different requirements:
Youth Exchanges are projects for young people between 13 and 30 years old, but it is important to take into account that most projects focus on young people between 18 and 30 years old, since there are not so many opportunities for minors. In each project there are groups of young people from different nationalities, which are accompanied by a team leader who must be over 18 years old. The core of these projects is cultural sharing, so it is a good option if you want to have your first contact with the international reality.
Training Courses and Seminars involve participants from the age of 18 and have no maximum limit, however it is aimed at youth workers with experience in the topic of the project. During these projects everyone contributes with knowledge and activities, while improving their knowledge on a certain topic. It is important to highlight that in some cases young people who are not youth workers also take part in Training Courses and Seminars.
Duration
Erasmus+ short-term projects last between 5 and 21 days, the most common being approximately 10 days and some projects include an Advance Planning Visit (APV) to be carried out by the team leader or a the team leader and one participant with fewer opportunities.
In addition to the Youth Exchange itself, the participants are responsible for organising some activities before leaving for the country, these may include presentations, research, energisers, among others. This preparation will be followed by the sending organisation and team leaders. After the Youth Exchange, it will also be necessary to carry out some dissemination activities in the local community, which can include writing an article or facilitating a workshop based on the knowledge acquired during the period abroad.
Destinations
These mobility opportunities take place in European countries and partner countries, some of them include Ukraine, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Morocco, Iceland, Serbia, among others. Our advise is for you to focus more on the topic of the project itself than the hosting country.
Support
Depending on the sending organisation, it may be necessary to pay a membership fee, however a young person cannot be prevented from taking part in a mobility project, due to lack of financial capacity to pay this fee. Our advice is that this amount should be negotiated with the sending association and can be reduced or replaced in another way, for example, making a video for the association or writing an article.
The costs officially covered by the Erasmus+ programme are the following:
- The roundtrip between your home country and the country where the project will be implemented are financed up to an amount that is determined by distance. The participants are responsible to buy tickets, which will be refunded after the project (see F.A.Q for exceptions);
- The accommodation is organised by the host association and it can be in a hostel, hotel or even camping. Rooms are generally shared with young people from other nationalities and separated by gender;
- Meals, such as breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks are also organised by the host organisation, always taking into account the dietary needs of each participant;
- All the materials needed to carry out the activity are also included, this means you don’t have to worry about pens, notebooks and material in general.
Finally it is important to note that you might need to purchase some things, such as food, for the intercultural night, since each participating country is responsible to organise some activities and share traditional food.
Application
If you live in an European country, probably there are several associations that work with these programs. At Youth Cluster we do not publicly disclose the name of associations, since we do not know all of them. We advise you to check out some Facebook groups, such as “Erasmus+ Youth Exchanges”, “Erasmus Plus Projects” and “Erasmus+”, because usually organisations use these groups to announce placements and recruit participants for these projects.
In case you want to organise your own Youth Exchange, you can also do it, since the main goal is for young people to organise projects with the support of organisations. In this case our advise is for you to contact a local association and probably they will support you with this process.