CRCA/ECPAT Albania: A leading CSO in improving youth training and employment opportunities in Albania and Western Balkans

December 2, 2024
2:41 pm

CRCA/ECPAT Albania is a leading child and youth rights CSO with 28 years of experience in youth work, empowering young people to participate in policy and decision-making, education, vocational training, while increase their employment opportunities. CRCA has been instrumental in influencing the change of landscape for youth rights in Albania, by drafting Youth Law, which made it possible the recognition of youth work as a profession and vocation. It has empowered more than 3000 young people in policymaking, youth engagement and rights, advocacy, leadership and elections, employment opportunities etc. As of 2020 it has established a One-Stop Regional Centre for Youth Services supporting 2000 young people in south of Albania with career advice, information on general education and vocational training opportunities, youth employment, life skills and social care support.

CRCA Albania’s Experience and Involvement

CRCA Albania has experience in participating in various international projects supported by programs like Horizon2020, Erasmus+, and many other EU initiatives. On youth employment opportunities it has been working since 2000’s with ICON-GET Institute and GTZ in Germany, UNDP and UNICEF, Global Campaign for Education, Council of Europe etc. Our Youth Rights Programme established in 1997, has contributed to empowering more than 2000 youth and their organisations across Albania and Western Balkan, enhancing formal and non-formal curriculum, supporting their education and employment opportunities, strengthening youth work in Albania, supporting the authorities to introduce youth work at local level, supporting new youth policies, legislation and research, strengthening youth participation and access to justice.

CRCA Albania’s Role in the DRUPWB Consortium

Since joining the DRUPWB consortium, CRCA Albania team has utilised our experience, know-how and networking coming from 28 years of implementing our Youth Rights Programme. Our initiatives and projects are focused on empowering youth to lead a life full of opportunities for personal and community development and empowerment, youth participation in decision-making, build a model of one-stop-shop for youth services where we provide information of formal education, vocational training and youth employment, promote support for youth life skills, social wellbeing, care and support in various social and institutional settings.

CRCA/ECPAT Albania main contributions to the DRUPWB project include:

Knowledge building and sharing: In our page we have established a portal for youth services, where we will provide information on current VET training offers, youth social care services, youth employment opportunities, info on youth work etc.
Research: CRCA has a long history of research into national policies and programmes for youth, formal and non-formal education and VET training. youth employment opportunities, use of technology, institutional organisation etc.
Capacity Building on several areas of Youth work and Youth empowerment: As a major youth centre, CRCA offers training programs for young people, opportunities for them to engage at local, national and international initiatives, effective models of youth empowerment and participation in decision-making, build dialogues among policy-makers and youth, teachers education, AI and other technology use for training and education etc.
Influencing policy and legislation: One of the core elements of the CRCA work is to identify gaps in policy and legislation, and address them by advocacy, joint work with public institutions to draft new policies and legislation, empower youth to be part of policymaking etc. CRCA has supported the preparation of every national youth policy in Albania, it drafted Youth Law in Albania and supports municipalities to have their own local youth policies and action plans.
Supporting collaborative initiatives with youth participation at the core: CRCA Albania promotes and supports collaboration with public institutions, CSOs and youth themselves in transforming formal and non-formal education. We put emphases that youth participation shall be at the core of all such initiatives.

We believe that by applying this expertise in STEM education in formal and non-formal settings we setup new youth opportunities for development and increase of access to technology and innovation for everyone.