Youth Correspondents

DEFINITION

The Youth Correspondent is that person who, voluntarily and responsibly, dedicates part of his/her free time to inform to other young people in Educational Centers, Neighborhood Associations, Youth Associations, Youth Houses, Work Centers, Leisure and Recreational locals, etc… in collaboration with a Youth Information Center. One of the main characteristics of the correspondent is that she/he spreads information from a young person to another and gathers up the informative demands of his fellows to pass them on to the C.I.J. (Youth Information Center).

TASKS

The task of the Youth Correspondent is voluntary and produces a multiplier effect of information. Far from being a messenger, she/he acts as transmitter of information in a double sense: she/he gathers up the worried and preferences of the youth in the field he’s moving and tries to give them punctual information about these other matters.

Tasks, functions and goals to be developed and covered by any Youth Correspondent:

- To apply, by writing, the accreditation of Youth Correspondent to the Youth Information Center and to present, also by writing and if the case, his stoppage or withdrawal of the condition of Correspondent.

- Daily collection of information of the Center he/she collaborates with.

- Choosing that person who is really interesting for the collective he/she is destined to.

- Keeping up the devices updated and to manage them and the other media (information boards, daily newsletters, database, etc.) and to inform young people, through claims, that the information of these devices is just for them.

- Having information folder for self-consult with thematic distribution and wide and accurate information.

- Informing personally about the questions he may is asked.

- Transmitting to the C.I.J those problems that due to special complexity she/he cannot attend personally.

- Trying to form a working team, cheering up to other young to participate actively, trying them to convert in spreaders of the information in the centers they are.

- Assisting to recycling and updating courses.

- Keeping a stable, regular and sharp labor during his/her period of activity.

- Establishing and empowering the contacts between the Correspondents of the same field of action and locality for exchanging experiences.

CHARACTERISTICS

The distinctive features of the Youth Correspondent are:

- Volunteer:
The nature of wilfulness, that activity made by her/his own will and spontaneously, not obligatorily, is the main goal of the correspondent.

- Informer
Any Correspondent must be an educated and informed person and must participate in the Youth programs; being a tool or just a messenger of information is to be half Correspondent.
He/she must feel like a collaborator in a network of Youth Information Centers.

- Entertainer:
A youth correspondent organizes activities, connects people and groups, encourages groups or educative, cultural, and participative processes, invigorates collectives… If entertainment is “the art of making”, then the entertainer must be an artist in doing, promoting and spreading. Information and activities.

- Responsible:
The Youth Correspondent must answer at every time about his/her commitment and must be aware of her/his responsibilities and to be ready to work according to them.

- Organization Capacity
To articulate the spread of information, to receive the concerns of the young people and to manage activities.

- Outgoing:
An open character and ease to be in contact with others are great for the task of correspondent.

- Dynamic:
This characters is linked with the previous one; a good correspondent is not only outgoing, but also must be active, enterprising, with a clear tendency to make and develop things.

- Lavish:
Attentive, with the will to provide knowledge to her/his fellows and ready to share and observe whether the interlocutor understands his speech or not.

- Ethical :
The Correspondent must assume values like solidarity, tolerance, etc.

ACCREDITATION

In order to ease his/her labor, and recollecting a demand expressed by themselves in front to the Youth General Director of Andalucía Council, during the I Regional Meeting of Young Correspondents, celebrated in November 1993, it was made a Youth Correspondent Card, in order to certificate to their owner what they are. This card began to be dispatched in 1994 in the Provincial Centers of Documentation and Youth Information (current Provincial Directions) on the motion of C.I.J, previous application to the interested Correspondent.

GRANTS

a) From Andalucía Council.
The Ordinance of the Ministry of the Presidency of 8th January 2002 by which it is regulated and called the grants to Youth Associations and Youth Correspondent Groups in terms of Youth (BOJA number 10, 24th January), recollects as novelty that “the regime of grants regarded in the current Ordinance will have indefinite character, being the concession of grants limited to the budget availabilities of each exercise.”
This regulation establishes that those who can apply the grant are the groups of at least four Young Correspondents, under the age of 30.
The maximum grant to be perceived will never be superior to the 75% of the total budget for the project or presented activity.
The recommendation is to go to the Youth Information Center to expose the proposal and to gain support, to fill in the application as well as to make a favorable inform of the Center if the project is perfect.

b) The U.E.
B) The EU, on the other hand, is in the Communitarian Action Programme of “Youth” whose validity comes from the 1st January 200 to 31st December 2006 in the “Action 5.Complementarian Measures”, make judgments on some measures of grants for responsible of associations, seminaries and formative courses.
The grants are concreted in activities of Formation according to the practicum experience (jobshadowing), visits of viability, seminaries of searching contacts ( or of interlocutor), Visits to the studio, Seminars and formative Courses.
In the “Action 3. Youth Initiatives”, in the group 3.1 of Initiatives of Young Groups, an important topic is the “young’s information and education”, to which some youth groups between 12-25 and residents in the countries of the program can base on.

c) Others.

Some City Halls also call grants for the labor of the Youth Correspondents in their townships.