Van Youth Education Academy Organisation

Before VAGEAD were set up, the volunteers and members of VAGEAD were a youth community. We did our activities for more than two years under Innovative Youth of Vn City umbrella till we set up VAGEAD that has been officially found on 15th April 2019. Our organisation consists of 141 members and volunteers from Van and surrounding cities. An extensive range of young people who lives in rural areas can not reach even minimum education requirements. On the other hand, the young people who live in the city centre also have the same difficulties getting a quality education and training opportunities. Unfortunately, in Van City, getting a quality education is not possible for everyone currently. Our association was founded to contribute to the improvement of youth policies in Turkey. The specific aims of our NGO are: • to provide solidarity among youth in Van city by creating activities that are easily reachable, • to encourage young individuals’ entrepreneurial spirits then increasing their employment possibility in the business market, • to help young individuals acquire knowledge, skills and competencies, by encouraging and empowering them participating in the most needed skills in the world like ICT, agriculture and language fields, • to support the efforts to contribute to the integration of all disadvantaged youth in their communities. We organise some inclusive activities with young people from many different backgrounds. Thus, we give equal opportunities for every young person in our organisation, • To support young people in conducting studies in social, cultural, educational, health, sports, science, and arts, • To coordinate international cooperation activities to strengthen European awareness among young people, • To engage them in some activities to keep them away from many bad habits such as drugs, alcohol, smoking and illegal structures, • to organise environmental activities for cleaner and greener Van city. VAGEAD organises ICT, English and Korean, project writing, job interview and modern agriculture courses. VAGEAD has strong connections and relations with public and private organisations in the city. Therefore, it can include many of its volunteers in the activities of the pre-mentioned organisations. Those public and private organisations always invite VAGEAD’s volunteers to their activities. VAGEAD organises several city volunteering activities, such as environmental, health and well-being, and modern agriculture. More than 400 locals have attended those activities so far. Our organisation has an active role in youth informative activites. Periodically, with the help of young volunteers, VAGEAD holds youth information sessions in the city. These sessions are organised online and face to face. During these sessions, young people are informed about European opportunities such as youth exchanges, ESC, training, apprenticeship and projects. VAGEAD targets all young groups between 13-30 without looking at their age, genders, beliefs, ethnic groups, economic status and political affiliations. Apart from our general target groups, VAGEAD pays particular attention to young people who are from low economic and social status, dropped school at earlier stages, are internally displaced, suffer from geographical disadvantages, have learning disabilities. VAGEAD has local, national and international targets. To reach those targets, it uses national and international sources. Therefore, we want to improve our organisational capacity for more project opportunities for mostly disadvantaged young people in our city. Many of our young members and volunteers actively participate in managing, planning, capacity hbt and project activities. VAGEAD has two international youth exchange and one national approved projects, which are on healthy diet, green environment and local youth volunteering.