19-20 June 2013, Zagreb (Croatia)

ZagrebThe symposium on Youth Policy Co-operation in South East Europe "The role of information and counselling in fostering young people's social inclusion and access to their rights" was organised by the EU-CoE youth partnership, the Ministry of Social Policy and Youth of Croatia, ERYICA and SALTO RC SEE.

Information and counselling represent an important empowering factor for young people in overcoming social exclusion and achieving access to their rights. The key lies in providing adequate, understandable and easily accessible information that young people can feel comfortable using. And while modern means of communication open up new and exciting possibilities in reaching out to an increasing number of young people, we must not neglect the importance of counselling and the role of professional youth work. Information without personal support and advice can be ineffective or, worse, wrongly interpreted. This symposium looked at how the governments in partnership with other stakeholders can increase their outreach and extend their information and counselling support network to young people in the region.

Coyote magazine's editorial team of five was  present at the symposium gathering material for the 21st edition focused on youth information and counselling. It was the team's intention to explore the major themes by interviewing participants and giving them opportunities to express themselves, making contacts with future authors and collecting different images to illustrate the magazine.

Coyote has a growing track record of reflecting such events as can be seen in editions based on the First Youth Work Convention (2010) held in Ghent, Belgium and the Strasbourg Symposium on Recognition (2011). You can find those and other editions of the magazine on the Partnership website.