After months of work and interviews, we are presenting a new publication dedicated to stories about shrinking space for civil society and its effects on youth organisations, youth work and young people in the Eastern Partnership 6 countries.

The aim of this publication and platform is to offer a space for reflection and sharing the personal experience young people have, that cannot be found in any other research, publication or behind policy papers. People who work on the publication think that personal approaches and narratives are underestimated when the problems of shrinking space are being communicated.

The term “shrinking space” used in this collection of stories is to describe various processes and measures taken by national governments to restrict the activity of civil society organisations that aim to limit freedom of expression, as well as the freedom of assembly and association of human rights and youth organisations. Governments create some extra-legal and administrative barriers to make it more difficult for civil society organisations to operate.

Overall, there are 15 stories in this collection from 6 countries. The storytellers were in 18-35 years old age group. The data and respondents are anonymized intentionally in some of the stories, as the respondents/storytellers wished so. This has been done with the consent of the respondents related to the sensitivity of the topics. The stories were kept in the language of the people telling them to keep their authenticity. The original texts were not intentionally changed and edited a lot, so as they sound as the first-hand experience.

These stories also support and bring solidarity for strengthening civil society organisations in the Eastern Partnership region. The stories are available in the specially designated platform on www.shrinking.space, where all the stories may be found. If you can relate to any of the stories, want to share your story about shrinking space for civil society and its effects on youth work and young people, or if you have questions or would just like to get in contact with us, please drop us a line on the platform. We will help you in telling your stories, and the new stories will be regularly published on the www.shrinking.space.

This publication and platform are implemented by the Federation of Youth Clubs of Armenia (www.fyca.net ) in cooperation with the European Confederation of Youth Clubs (www.ecyc.org). This action is implemented within the CSF Armenian National Platform Secretariat support to the ANP Working Groups' activities. This platform was produced with the financial support of the European Union.