TURKISH NATIONAL AGENCY WILL PROVIDE 15 MILLION EUROS TO THE YOUTH PROJECTS

The Youth Project, which is one of the two main projects carried by the Turkish National Agency, enables all the young people and our citizens of all ages who participate in the works aimed at the young people, regardless of their educational background and their foreign language background, to be engaged in activities in our country or in other European countries.

The Youth Programme aims at, through international experiences and gains, increasing the employment of young people, eliminating the prejudices, establishing the intercultural learning and strengthening the active participation of the young people to the decision making processes and the youth policies. With three call for tenders, of which the deadlines for application are 1 February, 1 May and 1 October, support is provided to the projects submitted by the young people, youth personnel and the institutions, non- governmental organizations, local administrations, universities and public institutions.

The evaluation process of the Youth Projects of which the deadline for application were determined as 1 May 2013, were completed by the Turkish National Agency. 246 projects out of 814 projects submitted in this period were entitled to receive grant. In the Youth Programmes, to which approximately 15 million Euros were planned to be distributed until the end of the year, approximately 4,2 million Euros were allocated to the projects that were entitled to receive grants in the May period. In the May application period, which projects from 59 different provinces were entitled to be supported, Ankara, with 32 projects and total 535.306 Euros allocation for the grants, has been the province which the most projects were supported. Istanbul has been the second with 24 projects and 390.928 Euros allocation for grants; Gaziantep has been the third with 13 projects and 336.077 Euros allocation for grants.

Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis said: “The Youth Programme Projects do not only gather our young people with their European peers, but also render them a volunteer member of the negotiation committee in the EU accession process. In these projects the prejudices are eliminated; in return dialog and mutual learning take place. During the learning activities, when our young people get to know their European peers, they become more aware of their potentials and therefore their self-confidences increase. With the only Youth Programmes, within 2013, we make use of approximately 15 million Euros EU support and with this resource we send our 20.000 young people to the EU countries for different purposes such as training, traineeship, volunteer working, etc. When we also take into consideration the supports provided by other programmes carried out by Turkish National Agency, we will have sent our 70.000 citizens to the EU countries in 2013. With the comprehensive works of the Turkish National Agency in the recent years, after Germany and Great Britain, Turkey has been the third country which makes use of the most from the Youth Programmes. In terms of the number of participants who hold the “Youthpass” certificate, Turkey is in the first position. The interest of the young people to the programme and their efforts are very pleasing. On this opportunity, I would like to congrugulate the project owners who are entitled to receive grants from the Youth Programmes for the second period of 2013. I invite all our young people and the non-governmental organizations which organize activities for the young people and our public institutions to make use of the program for the next period of which the deadline for application is 1 October 2013.