How can your MO/NSO grow? What can you do to increase your growth or stop the declining membership? This is the main topic of the Growth Event (JUMP) taking place in Copenhagen from 26 to 29 April.

The aim of this training course is to gather organizations from the European countries to discuss and compare different designs of growth and inclusion plans that will ultimately give more opportunities to young people to participate in youth associations and therefore in society.

Our objectives are:

• to equip young leaders with the skills needed to develop and manage youth work and organizations;
• to strengthen their capacities and increase their potential to become decision-makers in their associations, and;
• to create a network of leaders for future support and cooperation.

Participants will gain skills in assessing society and understanding young people’s needs, designing programs and managing structures that match young people’s expectations and in writing a growth inclusive plan for the nominating organization. The plans can then be implemented in the nominating organizations.

The program delivery will include training and expert sessions on societal youth trends, research and youth needs assessment as well as workshops on participatory programs and project management, change management, succession planning and youth participation in decision making.

Ample room will also be given to get to know each other, to exchange best practices, to discuss specificities of the different countries in learning how to understand young people’s actual needs, how to design programs that encourage the participation of young men and young women from different backgrounds and how to ensure young people actively participate in the design and implementation of the programs.

Participants and selection criteria

To ensure the best possible results and the full achievement of the objectives, the organizers have set selection criteria to be respected when nominating participants. Please note that your nominees may not be accepted if they do not respect the criteria below:

The selected participant should:

• Have ample experience in Scouting / Guiding;
• Have ample experience at national level in your organization;
• Be involved at national level on growth related projects;
• Be in the position to influence the implementation plan to grow as an organization;
• Be able to contribute on a strategic level as a project leader in your own organization;
• Be preferably between 25 and 30 years of age whenever possible (participants should be under 30);
• Feel comfortable with abstract thinking and not be focused on only one area of work, and;
• Have an overview of a wide range of areas such as youth Programme, recruitment, training, public relations, etc.

Deadline for application and contact

Interested participants should submit their registration by filling in the online registration form that is available on the following link: www.europak-online.net/growth-event-registration.

Deadline for submission of registration forms is to 8th of April 2012. Please note that applications will be screened according to the criteria set by the organizers of the project and that nominated participants will only be accepted if they match all criteria. In case your application does not fulfill the requirements stated above in this letter, the organizers will contact you in order to identify another young person.

Read more about JUMP in official Invitation
et en français ici