## **CPDA** ## **CENTRE FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND ADVOCACY** ## **Report and accounts** ## **Contents** ||**Page**| |---|---| |**Organisation information**|**3**| |**Directors' report**|**4-15**| 1 ## **REGISTERED OFFICE** 113 QueensRoad Brighton, BN1 £XG United Kingdom. +44(0)3003657115 centrepdadvocacy@gmail.com Folasupo Obisesan Director Company Limited by Guarantee Reg. No. **08499821** Charity Commission Reg. No **. 1167630** ## **ANNUAL REPORT OF PROGRAMMES AND ACTIVITIES** ## **CPDA PROFILE** Centre for Policy Development and Advocacy (CPDA) seeks to promote the visibility of young people through creative learning and engagement in decisions that will affect and impact their future. Ignorance has been the bedrock of most cases of abuses and discriminations by society, Centre for Policy Development and advocacy seeks to break this tide through non-formal participatory approach to learning and training for knowledge development in human rights, nonviolent conflict transformation and intercultural learning. Memberships are Organizational and individually based. CPDA seeks to serve as a primary catalyst for enhancing the re-integrations of former offenders and minority groups’ participation in issues relating to governance, human rights and societal development in U.K and Europe. CPDA implements are projects through face to face training session, etrainings, seminars and community focused group meetings with the effective use of new media. Centre for Policy Development and Advocacy employ research approach in collating data for effective project execution. The organization work principally with youth and young people but engages with other categories for the creation of a more open society. 2 ## **CENTRE FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND ADVOCACY** ## **OBJECTIVES OF THE ORGANISATION** - Ø "CPDA” promotes open society and the deepening of knowledge and community cohesion through capacity building and skills development of young people who are socially and economically disadvantaged in England and Wales in such a way that they are trained in soft skills that will enhance their prospects in becoming gainfully and economically empowered, relieving poverty and to participate fully in society" - Ø "To promote the education and continuous learning of young people ages 15 to 30 years and older through formal and informal skills acquisition trainings including: - v awarding to such persons scholarships, maintenance allowances or grants tenable at any university, apprenticeship, college or institution of higher or further education; - v providing their education (including the study of music or other arts), to undertake travel in furtherance of that education, Job shadowing or to prepare for entry to any occupation, trade or profession on leaving any educational (formal/informal) establishment." - ü Promotion of Equality and Diversity through intercultural learning and travelling to learn about other cultures. - ü Promotion of Racial Harmony- Through Dialogue and consultations on how communities can work together for the benefit of all in a way that is devoid of violence and rancour - Ø To promote social inclusion for the public benefit by working with people in England and Wales who are socially excluded on the grounds of their ethnic origin, religion, belief or creed (in particular, members of the faith community and minority groups) to relieve the needs of such people and assist them to integrate into society, in particular by: - ü Providing a local network group that encourages and enables members of the faith community and other minority groups to participate more effectively with the wider community through dialogue; - ü Increasing, or co-ordinating, opportunities for members of the faith community to engage with service providers, to enable those providers to adapt services to better meet the needs of that community.” - Ø Young People - To advance in life and [relieve needs of] [help] young people through: - ü Providing support and activities which develop their skills, capacities and capabilities to enable them to participate in society as mature and responsible individuals. - ü Advancing in life and helping young people by developing their skills, capacities and capabilities to enable them to participate in society as independent, mature and responsible individuals 3 **Training Course** ## **Social and Economic Integration of Youth Workers through Intercultural Learning TRAINING COURSE 24 – 30 June, 2023 – Manchester, U.K** European integration is a debate that has taken different colorations and interpretations over the years, from generation to generation but the current debates are full of apprehensions and paranoia which has taken a more short sighted and negative rhetoric’s in which extreme nationalists in European countries have latched on this debate and have dubbed European integration has the ravaging disease that is destroying Europe. This project is not out to make a counter argument but rather it seeks to stir the debates around integration away from the normative and narrowed representation of European integration as trade and economic integration but this project will engage in a holistic perspective of integration. What it has meant, what it has archived and how integration is positively impacting Europe and present day youth and how it will impact generations yet unborn. The project seeks to get young people of the fence and encourage them to consciously engage with the nuances of integration in Europe because it is one of the main issues that will affect their future . The training will help youth workers and young people to engage with the multifaceted dimensions of integration with a view to creating a society that is devoid of discrimination ,stereotype and xenophobia but to create a much more equal and inclusive Europe. This kind of broad understanding of European integration by young people will nip in the bud and bit back the rise of extreme nationalism and xenophobia tendencies within the borders of Europe. A broad understanding of integration among the youth will deny recruits and converts to the political rhetoric of new physical borders and slam brakes on the unintended consequences of a two tier Europe demarcated based on GDP and economic indexes as currently seen as northern Europeans and 4 Southern Europeans. ## **Objectives of the project is;** - To promote a society of equal opportunities - -To promote a society that is devoid of discrimination and Xenophobia. - To promote alternative narrative beyond the market and trade defined integration. -To train young people on how to engage with diversity and how to function effectively and compete in a multicultural Europe. - -To train 32 youth workers from partners countries on multiculturalism and leveraging diversity - To build capacity and understanding around successes that integration has brought Europe This project addressed the flawed perspective of reducing European citizens to just a number on the GDP scale and then try to use that illustration to measure the success of integration. The project redirected the argument that ties economic crisis to failure of integration and break the inertia and lack of enthusiasm seen among young people as it relates to European project and integration. The project infused youth workers and young people with skills that enabled them to leverage the benefits of the diversities in Europe. The project succeeded in training young people to challenge and confront xenophobia through knowledge and better reasoning and halt every effort in the political space that promotes a two tier Europe through effective youth participation in the European democratic process.. ## **GROUP WORK** 5 ## **Entrepreneurial Gene; What is your profile** ## **7th to 15th of September, 2023** ## **OVERVIEW OF Entrepreneurial Gene** Since 2008 financial and economic recession. Europe has not fully found itself on the right footing after 8 years and the skyrocketing rates of youth unemployment is quite alarming with Greece hovering around 47.9%, Spain 47.7%, Italy 39.8% and Portugal with 31.8%. That is the EU data for youth unemployment for October 2015. It has got worse in so many other countries including the relatively stable economies of Germany and United Kingdom. Inner cities of Britain are also badly hit and the 2011 violent riot can not be separated from the frustration that is boiling over among young people. These kinds of protest have been seen in Greece, Spain, Bulgaria to mention a few. The current political standstill in Europe seems not to be giving room for any concrete action. According to Europe 2020 framework, the "EU's growth strategy for the coming decade In a changing world, we want the EU to become a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy. These three mutually reinforcing priorities should help the EU and the Member States deliver high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion". If this ambitious vision must be realized, entrepreneurship revolution among the young people is major key for a better future in Europe. One fact that can not be overemphasized is the fact that youth unemployment is getting worse because so many people were training for the jobs of the past and not for the job of the future and the jobs are not even there. Enough jobs are not been created because there are not enough entrepreneurs because entrepreneurs create jobs. Certain regional institutions have unwittingly suggested that unemployed and underemployed should consider entrepreneurship as an option. Entrepreneurship is not just an option but a credible option for the unemployed young people but also the hope of resuscitating European economy in other for it to compete in the new worlds economy. Entrepreneurship which is a credible and the only means by which any economy can be self-sufficient and constantly transform has not been very appealing to a lot of young people because the statistics on the rate of failure of start-ups are noting to right home about . A situation in which one in every ten startups barely makes it to the first anniversary. But this project brings a new revolutionary perspectives to entrepreneurship debate. Why we have had the volume of failures in entrepreneurship adventures was because we were not training people to innovate and discover there entrepreneurial make up. Rather we have encouraged people more often than not to copy other innovators and a lot of time gurus merely suggested that emerging entrepreneurs should imitate what is out there. The assumption being, all entrepreneurs are the same. But this project will help participants to discover there entrepreneurial make-up and innovate along their discovered areas of expertise and to understand that not all entrepreneurs are the and that no one size fits all and neither imitation or copying other people land them success. The project will expose participants to four fundamental profiles or make up an entrepreneur. Discovering their profiles will enable them to thrive in businesses of their choice with ease. The training will be non-formal and learner centred which will help them to discover their innate capabilities and then acquire relevant skills alongside these discoveries. This project will turn what participants have known and read about entrepreneurship on its head and take them to a new world of adventure of possibilities ## OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT -To train 30 youth workers on innovation skills. -Train youth workers on social entrepreneurship -To train youth workers how to turn social problem into economic benefit 6 - To train youth workers and youth leaders in team building and team leading skills which will enable them to leverage diversity in a multicultural workspace. - Train youth worker on fundamental profiles of an entrepreneur - Train youth workers time management - Train youth workers in task management - -Train youth workers in Business development _Train youth workers negotiations skills The project will take place in Manchester in U.K for a Period of nine days with partner countries which have been carefully selected, which includes Poland, Norway ,Italy ,Hungary, Azerbaijan, Norway, Spain and U.K, These are countries going through major economic uncertainties and young people are in daily despair about their future. The diverse nature of countries chosen will benefit the training process in its enrichments with partners bringing different experiences to table ## **IN SESSION** But how does one become an effective negotiator? The training revolutionized young people in Europe. The training not only re-launched young people and redirected their energies, it sought to make them change agents and unarmed army of young people skilled in Conflict Transformation and Negotiation through Turbulence. The varieties of countries chosen were to feed into the training methodologies being designed for the sessions. Experiential approach to learning. Young people were supported to be masters of their own learning. This approach combined with participatory methodologies allowed role plays, storytelling and new creative methods at responding to pressures and frustrations which will include but 7 not limited to peace education, conflict analyses. Lenses of Conflict, reconciliation negotiation skills, and team building. The project took place in Brighton in U.K for a Period of ten days and countries included in the partnership are U.K, Spain, Poland, Bulgaria, Norway, Italy and Hungary. The training directly benefitted 32 participants and the participants were supported to train twenty people to make an immediate multiply of 640 people and then goes into multiple of thousands. GROUP WORK ## **The Role of Youth in Re-imagining the Pivots of Integration in Europe; Gateway to social inclusion and Equality for all** ## **1st to 7th of January, 2018.** European integration is a debate that has taken different colorations and interpretations over the years, from generation to generation but the current debates are full of apprehensions and paranoia which has taken a shorter sighted and negative rhetoric’s in which extreme nationalists in European countries have latched on this debate and have dubbed European integration has the ravaging disease that is destroying Europe. The project was not out to make a counter argument but rather it sought to stir the debates around integration away from the normative and narrowed representation of European integration as trade and economic integration but this project will engage in a holistic perspective of integration. What it has 8 meant, what it has achieved and how integration is positively impacting Europe and present day youth and how it will impact generations yet unborn. The project sought to get young people off the fence and encourage them to consciously engage with the nuances of integration in Europe because it is one of the main issues that will affect their future. The training helped youth workers and young people to engage with the multifaceted dimensions of integration with a view to creating a society that is devoid of discrimination, stereotype and xenophobia but to create a much more equal and inclusive Europe. This kind of broad understanding of European integration by young people will nip in the bud and bit back the rise of extreme nationalism and xenophobia tendencies within the borders of Europe. A broad understanding of integration among the youth will deny recruits and converts to the political rhetoric of new physical borders and slam brakes on the unintended consequences of a two tier Europe demarcated based on GDP and economic indexes as currently seen as northern Europeans and Southern Europeans. ## **Objectives Achieved:** - Promoted a society of equal opportunities - Promoted a society that is devoid of discrimination and Xenophobia. - Promoted alternative narrative beyond the market and trade defined integration. - Trained young people on how to engage with diversity and how to function effectively and compete in a multicultural Europe. - Trained youth workers from partner’s countries on multiculturalism and leveraging diversity - Built capacity and understanding around successes that integration has brought Europe The project broadened discussions beyond the flawed perspective of reducing European citizens to just a number on the GDP scale which has largely been used to illustrate and measure the success of integration in Europe. The project redirected the argument that ties economic crisis to failure of integration and breaks the inertia and lack of enthusiasm seen among young people as it relates to European project and integration. The project infused youth workers and young people with skills that will enable them to leverage diversity in Europe 9