On the second day of the C.E.P. meeting in Cyprus, the Chief Executives and Presidents of ECYC’s member organizations had the opportunity to meet three key actors in the youth work sector in the island of Cyprus. Yiannis Yiannaki, who is the current Commissioner for Volunteering and Non-Governmental Organizations for the Cyprus Government, talked about the recent creation of his ‘particular’ role. The main aim of the Commissioner’s Office is to implement policies that encourage active citizenship at all levels targeting young generation, to create tools in order to strengthen and facilitate better contact between the government and the citizens, to support and promote the work of voluntary Organizations and NGOs and to create a meaningful culture of volunteerism by promoting its values and virtues. For instance, December 4th has been chosen as the ‘Public Consultation Day’, when (young and not so young) citizens are given the opportunity to express their suggestions and opinions and to exchange views about specific matters in order to influence governmental policies. The other two panelists were Nadia Karayianni, who is the Vice-president of the Cyprus National Youth Board, and Loizos Vasiliou, the current president of the Cyprus Youth Council (CYC). They both presented the work of their organizations and outlined the main issues and challenges that young people from Cyprus face nowadays.

After participating in a peer-to-peer session on leadership within youth organizations, the group focused on ECYC’s Work Plan for 2017-2018. At the Bureau meetings that took place during this summer, it was decided that ECYC would tackle two main topics in the next two years: the role of youth work in preventing violent radicalization of young people and youth entrepreneurship in youth clubs. For 2017, the following activities are on the table: the Secretariat has recently applied for funds from the European Youth Foundation to implement a total of five different activities (international training, campaign, seminar etc.) on the topic of violent radicalization. Moreover, an application for a training aiming at spreading awareness among young people in Europe on diversity in terms of different sexual orientation and gender identity and taking place in May 2017 in Cyprus has also been submitted to the European Youth Foundation. We will find out the outcomes of both applications before the end of 2016. The ‘Future of Youth Work’ project will also be re-submitted once the first call for Erasmus+ of 2017 opens.

Concerning the functioning base of ECYC, in 2017 there will be two statutory meetings, six Bureau working meetings, the development of 1 policy position paper and a functioning Secretariat based in Brussels. On the advocacy front, ECYC will participate in the last EU Youth Conference of the 5th cycle of the Structured Dialogue, will continue working within the European Youth Forum’s Youth Work Recognition, Education and Funding Networks and participating in meetings and consultations with the European Commission and with the Council of Europe and, last but not least, Andrea will sit on the Board of the European Youth Forum for the mandate 2017-2018. After the Bureau’s presentation, representatives of ECYC’s member organizations briefly presented their organization's strategic plans and how ECYC can help them achieve their goals.

The C.E.P. meeting came to an end in the evening of the second day, after an interesting tour of the city of Nicosia and festive celebrations for the 40th anniversary of ECYC!