Name of the organization: Connect your City
Website: http://www.connectathens.gr/
Brief description of the organization
CONNECT YOUR CITY is the first integrated Youth Centre in Greece, which operates at the neighbourhood level. It is an open meeting place for young people aged 16 to 30, who have the opportunity to make creative use of their free time, to develop their skills – through educational programs – and finally to have the opportunity to enter the labour market, through of the Job Club. CONNECT YOUR CITY strives to offer the new generation an interactive communication and action platform.
Problem addressed by the good practice
Connecting young people to volunteering opportunities.
Target groups
Young people 16-30, NEETs.
Summary of the good practice
The Connect you City application collects activities and volunteering opportunities from collaborating organisations, lists them. Users can select the activity that interests them, accept the challenge and proceed to participate. While participating, they collect evidence, either a couple of photos or a video. Then, they upload their evidence on the app and they are awarded a predetermined amount of points. Challenge rounds last for 3-4 weeks. At the end of each round, those that have accumulated the most points are awarded.
Evaluation
Through a process of gamification of participation, Connect you City app improves the visibility of local actions, raises awareness on the topics tackled by each individual action and engages more young people to volunteering.
Recommendations
This tool is useful for cities or localities where groups and organisations are providing numerous opportunities for participation of young people, but visibility and engagement remains an issue.
Resources
Information about the initiative can be found on the Connect Your City website. The application can be downloaded from GoogleApp Store