Stronger Youth

STRONGER YOUTH – Strengthening social competences and soft skills of young people through peer mentoring

Nowadays, young people face many new obstacles. A constantly changing environment and greater demands are putting pressure on teenagers. Individuals with inadequate social skills are then placed outside the community. And it is the project “Stronger Youth – Empowering young people social competences and soft skills through peer mentoring” that aims to strengthen the emotional stability of young people with the consequence of social inclusion.

Peer mentoring as depression prevention

The turbulent period of adolescence brings with it many challenges and is considered one of the most challenging periods. This project is aimed at young people who are facing many stressful situations at this stage of their lives and are entering adulthood without sufficient experience to help them through this difficult period.

The project focuses on strengthening young people’s resilience to stress and depression by working with peers. This process will be carried out with the help of peer mentoring, as no one understands an adolescent as well as another adolescent, i.e. with the help of peer mentoring.

Project outputs

The main goal of the project is to organize the peer mentoring process by providing methods for recruiting volunteers among resilient young people and providing them with tools to work and support with their peers who are at risk of depression. This project will contribute to the first phase of prevention by empowering young people through the most convenient communication channel: their peers. This will be achieved by:

  • creating a framework for communication with young people,
  • providing an online tool to recruit resilient young people who can volunteer,
  • creating a set of activities that peer mentors can provide to mentees in such a way that collaborative activities will develop and improve social resilience through learning and training soft skills and social competencies,
  • providing know-how for educators on how to work with young people who could be peer mentors as volunteers.

International team

This project started at the end of 2023 and its outputs are being worked on by experts from six European organisations, in addition to PELICAN:

  • PRISM IMPRESA SOCIALE S.R.L. (Italy) – it is a non-profit social enterprise that has been operating since 2012, whose mission is to create equal opportunities for the sensitive development of society, communities and people.
  • VITALE TECNOLOGIE COMUNICAZIONE – VITECO SRL (Italy) – is a company that provides software and e-lerning and works with both national customers and European partners in EU projects.
  • UNIVERSIDADE DE EVORA (Portugal) – is one of the universities belonging to the Portuguese public higher education system. Its mission includes the creation of knowledge through scientific and artistic research.
  • CENTRUL PENTRU PROMOVAREA INVATARII PERMANENTE TIMISOARA ASOCIATIA (Romania) – CPIP is an NGO based on the idea of lifelong learning as a tool for community development. Since 2006, we have been working with different target groups that share the need and desire for education.
  • Asociación Valencia Inno Hub (Spain) – a Spanish non-profit organization created to connect talent, technology and help individuals in their personal and professional development.
  • Fundacja Rozwoju Aktywnosci Miedzynarodowej i Edukacyjnej FRAME (Poland) – is a foundation that aims to develop and promote international cooperation between local organisations involved in education.

Project meetings

What is new in the project?

Press release (March 2024)