The COVID-19 pandemic has been a difficult time for everyone, in particular marginalised young people who have seen their world turned upside down and have struggled to stay connected and integrated. Over the past few months, People's Voice Media and Gorse Hill Studios have been working together as part of the CONTINUE project - a pan-European project co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme - to gather the stories of young people from Greater Manchester who have lived through these unprecedented times.

The young people have co-led the story gathering and curation workshops and are now ready to share their findings with members of the local community at this Coversation of Change event. The event will be co-facilitated by the young people themselves and People's Voice Media, with an aim to use their stories as stimuli for a dialogue about what civic action can be taken locally to address issues and ideas identified in them.

The Conversation of Change Event will take place at Gorse Hill Studios on Friday 4th February, 3:30pm until 6pm and is aimed at young people, local community leaders, members of the community and those who work in local government, health and social care, education sectors and beyond.

A NOTE ON COVID-19 MEASURES

At the moment, the event is planned as an in-person event, with all COVID-safe measures in place. However, should any restrictions in place at the time make it unlikely/impossible that the event be held in-person, we will move to an online space. Full notice of this will be given in advance so please do keep an eye out for emails from Peoples's Voice Media and/or Eventbrite.

ABOUT THE CONTINUE PROJECT

Connecting European Youth through Storytelling

CONTINUE will support young people suffering from social exclusion to tackle the specific challenges of post-COVID times in terms of staying connected and integrated into European communities. For youth on the margins of society, COVID emergency raised multiple complications such as:

• increase of their financial, material and health related vulnerabilities;
• loss of their existing connections to the institutions, social care system, job opportunities & decrease of their chances of social integration;
• lack of some basic skills and capacities in digital communication cutting them from their social, educational and economic connections.

For tackling these challenges, CONTINUE intends to:

• understand the main difficulties of marginalised youth during COVID-19 and their vision about the main challenges of post-COVID times;
• create a digital framework for supporting a smooth transfer from offline to online exchanges between young people, youth organisations and governance structures;
• capacity build for young people to delivery local social actions;
• enhance dialogue between stakeholders, policy makers and youth and improve relevant policy.

CONTINUE will directly involve young people with migrant and other marginal backgrounds in the project activities in order to enhance the interaction between individuals, their communities and the pan-European levels. .

CONTINUE will be realised by a Consortium of 8 NGOs working with marginal youth groups, experienced in youth education, community-based activities, policy recommendations, working with an extended network of organisations from different sectors.