ASOCIATIA DE TINERI DIN ARDEAL

Since being established in 2011, we aim to help develop, promote & represent the general interests of the communities in Transylvania by having social, cultural, sporting, educational, recreational, volunteering & professional training activities, & thus promoting the active involvement of youth in the perpetuation of ethnic, national & European values. Motto: To show Europe to Transylvania & Transylvania to Europe! For a better context regarding our target groups, our immediate community is the small town of Cristuru Secuiesc with 10000 souls which has a lot of rural elements. It is surrounded by many villages where 25000 people live. 96 % of these belong to the Hungarian and Rroma minority facing social, cultural, geographical, financial and educational difficulties both due to the rural and low infrastructure context and the minority status. We collaborate with 3 high schools, 1 vocational school, 9 primary and secondary schools, 7 NGO's, a family type orphanage, a center for the disabled youth, etc. Our wider community is Transylvania (1/3 of Romania with a population of 7 million) as we are implementing some mobility projects in regions different than ours and because we are selecting youth to go to outgoing mobility and ESC projects from Transylvania, not just from our region. The founding members of ATA, who are also currently employed and managing the NGO, have quite an extensive experience in writing, implementing & reporting local, international & youth or adult mobility, volunteering or solidarity projects. This 13 year expertise comes from first being active members of other NGO's & for the past 10 years managing these kind of projects in the Youth Association from Transylvania. They are joined by other employees, interns and collaborators, making a team of 29 qualified people managing and supporting local and international project, with future plans to grow. Our strategic plan and aims for the 2021-2027 period: - We need to start to put into effect the original plan of our NGO, to truly become the Youth Association from TRANSYLVANIA, by establishing branches that more effectively empower, include and train our target groups - We should enlarge our employed and volunteering staff so that we have more capacities and knowledge to start doing larger, not one off projects, but more strategically planned ones that can support institutions dealing with education in our region (kindergartens, schools, high-schools, VETs and NGOs. - We need to continue working on the existing main pillars of our areas of expertise, which focus on A) the SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT of our region, through activities related to food equity, seasonal foods, seed saving, herbalism, traditional agriculture & not only, B) the INCLUSION of our target groups who belong to the Hungarian or Rroma minority in Romania, or are deaf, that come from socially, economically & geographically disadvantaged rural areas & C) ENTREPRENEURSHIP skill development among young adults, BUT ALSO on developing new ones based on newly identified needs, most importantly, to become experts, D) EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT, as a strategy & tool that can support our youth & our local partners, the institutions dealing with education & on creating new, E) INNOVATIVE methods & activities that better assess & respond to the needs of our target groups & partners. Now with the new avenues offered by strategically approved 7 year granting schemes offered by Erasmus+ and the ESC program, we feel confident that our strategies are in line with the priorities of these programs and that through their financial support we will be able to achieve or create positive changes in development and solidarity in the region. Regarding our activities, since 2013 we hosted 116 EVS/ESC volunteers, 107 for long term, 9 for short term, at the same time, since 2017 we sent 136 volunteers to participate in ESC projects across Europe and some even in Africa. In the past 9 years we also organized 15 youth exchanges