The “Speak up, we are listening” project idea is developed through our experience in trainings and exchanges of the past years we did with our partners. What we see is that many youth workers, trainers and organisations have a lot of ideas and knowledge to share and have many hot topics/issues they will like to speak about to reach the public and spread awareness as well as to reach youngsters. However, many of them, even trainers, are lacking public speaking skills in order to attract the attention of the youth, especially people from vulnerable backgrounds, and share the knowledge with them. The same goes for the youth we are working with, most of them are have a lot of skills and ideas, but are lacking the knowledge how to present themselves, their work, and abilities, either to encounter a job or to advocate for their rights, issues, and concerns.

Thus, the project is designed so that the youth workers could not only improve their public speaking skills but also share their knowledge obtained during the course with the target audience. This will lead to the target audience (youth, including people with fewer opportunities) being able to increasingly advocate for their and other people’s rights, raise awareness on important issues, etc.

The aim of this project is to empower youth workers and youth to present and raise awareness on the contemporary hot issues, encourage dialogue and acceptance through improvement of public speaking skills and advocacy tools. This, in the long term, would lead to more acceptant, aware and inclusive society.

The objectives of the “Speak up, we are listening” project are:

• To increase awareness among youth workers, trainers, youth and youth organisations about the importance of public speaking and storytelling in their work and daily lives;
• To provide knowledge to youth workers, trainers, youth and youth organisations on how to prepare and deliver a presentation and speech with a clear message to achieve their goals;
• To show how youth organisations and youth workers can use public speaking and advocacy tools in improving their work with youth as well as creating their organisation’s strong personal image;
• To provide youth workers with tools and methods to share gained knowledge with youth – ensure empowerment of youth including people with fewer opportunities by improving public speaking skills so that the target audience can successfully advocate for issues and rights, and concerns that are close to them;
• To disseminate the knowledge acting as multipliers and share the skills acquired during the Training Course by youth workers delivering public speaking workshops for youth in their organisations during the Local Action Phase;
• To strengthen cooperation between partner organisations and to provide them with the context to develop new project ideas.

Download the project info pack here and the guidelines for public speaking training here here. 

Disclaimer: This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained here.