Blog

Tartu Noorsootöö Keskus (Tartu Youth Work Center) is looking for 2 ESC volunteers for the upcoming project „ESC volunteers at Tartu Youth Work Center 2023“. 📅Service dates: February 2023- September 2023 (8 months); 📍Location: Tartu, Estonia; 2️⃣Number of volunteers: 2; 👩‍🌾Tasks: working in youth center daily and organizing youth events in Tartu; 🏠Accommodation: volunteers will live separately, travel, food and pocket money are provided. Language: english or russian. For applying and more information, contact us as soon as possible at helen.toomsalu@tartu.ee.

Next week, schoolchildren will be on vacation, and to help young people spend this time actively and interestingly, we have put together our own vacation program, which runs from Monday to Friday, October 24-28. There will be lots going on throughout the week at all five youth centers, so we hope there will be something for everyone. You can go horseback riding or get to know snakes and other animals; learn to raft; spend an exciting Halloween night at the youth center; go on a trip to Järvamaa, make Halloween decorations, or just hang out at the youth center and spend your time however you want. In addition to the activities at the youth center, there will also be an orienteering game called "Finnish Culture in Tartu" during the week. This is a game created as part of the Erasmus+ Diggiloo project, which...

From September 20-26, our staff participated in the second meeting of the Erasmus+ project “Elevate YOUth Work” in Riga. In addition to our staff, experts working with youth from Latvia, Portugal, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy, and other parts of Europe were also present. At the meeting, participants were able to reflect on and present local activities and workshops that had taken place in the interim, organize a forum for local LGBT+ youth and other experts, and create various outputs for the project. For example, two videos, two photo collections, three poems, one podcast, and much more were produced on the project's themes. Within the framework of the forum, locals had the opportunity to explore the project's outputs, listen to a panel discussion consisting of local LGBT+ activists, share and hear personal stories from local youth, and…

From September 8-15, the Tartu Youth Centre organized the youth exchange “Be Real”, where young people from Armenia, Hungary, Spain, and Estonia participated. The aim of the youth exchange was to learn more about today's online dangers, and the outcome was 6 videos that highlighted various dangers. During the youth exchange, online police officer Andero Sepp gave a talk, sharing his experiences and discussing prevalent dangers. Based on this, the young people started writing a script and creating a video. Each country also conducted at least one workshop, for example, a video editing workshop, a filming workshop, a social media workshop, etc. In the evenings, fun activities were planned, such as a cultural evening, during which various national dishes were tasted, hit songs from their respective countries were performed, and interesting facts were presented. There was also a dance evening, where...

From September 5th to 9th, there was a lot of activity under the Sõprus Bridge. Specifically, a large mural, or rather murals, were created there in cooperation with Estonian and Finnish street artists and young people, covering several walls, stairs, and even asphalt, totaling over 500 square meters. The main goal of the activity was to offer young people the opportunity to learn and contribute legally to public art. The young people were guided by the group SirkusRakkausPumPum, who have extensive experience in similar undertakings. A participant (15 years old) said: "I liked it. It's great that something like this was undertaken and young people were involved. There aren't many opportunities to do proper street art, or at least I haven't come across them. So it was a very special experience." Another...

☘️In spring, a youth-initiated project on the theme of Environment Week, 'Path to a Greener Future,' took place☘️ The project's goal was to inform the school community about environmental topics in fun and playful ways and to plant an environmental seed in everyone's hearts💛  Their activities included an environmental film night, a recycling fair, an exhibition of shocking facts, a waste sorting competition with preliminary rounds and a final, environmental lectures, the 'Come to School on Foot or by Bike' campaign, and World School traveling exhibitions.   Helen Toomsalu, project manager at the Tartu Youth Work Center, points out that young people undertake a wide variety of projects. For example, a photo hunt was organized, through which young people learned more about the city of Tartu. Every theme has been novel and exciting in its own way. Young people are very creative, and all great ideas are welcome! Projects can be carried out in such ways…

2.-7. September, the final meeting of the TED3 Tools for Employment & Environment Education Development project, or TED3 for short, took place in Reggio Calabria, Italy. TED 3 is an environmental international Erasmus+ project created to support sustainable development. The project's goal is to focus on socio-economic development and, at the same time, equip youth work with the necessary methods so that our young people acquire an environmentally friendly mindset and behavior from an early age. The project started already in 2019, but due to obstacles caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the project had to be put on hold. Now, there was again an opportunity to resume the project and meet together. The purpose of the meeting was to summarize and review what had been done during the project and to improve where necessary. Activities included...

On September 8, a networking meeting for people working with young people was held at the Tartu Youth Work Center on Lille Street. The purpose of the meeting was to learn more about each other's fields, establish new contacts, and find opportunities for cooperation. In addition, participants were told about restorative justice as a way of resolving conflicts or violations of the law and about the SPIN program, and they were given a closer look at the Lille Youth Center's facilities.  In addition to youth workers from the Tartu Youth Work Center, the meeting was attended by child protection specialists from the Tartu City Government, school social pedagogues, local police officers, the coordinator of the "Ringist välja" model, and specialists from the Education Support Services Center.  Margit Kink, director of the Tartu Youth Work Center, who organized the meeting, summed up the day as follows: "It is gratifying to see that nearly 60 specialists working with young people considered the meeting necessary and contributed to the event with their presence...

September 1st was an important day for many young people, as a new school year began. For the Tartu Youth Work Centre, however, this day was filled with busy work, because in addition to the Tartu Wisdom Festival, new premises were opened in the Lille and Anne youth centers for a younger target group than before. The second floor of Anne Youth Centre (Uus 56) and the first floor of Lille Youth Centre (Lille 9) now welcome 7–11-year-olds to spend their free time after school. The ground floor of both centers will henceforth be aimed at 12–19-year-olds. The opening program was more festive than usual, as befitted the first day. The official opening of the Lille premises with city government representatives took place at 12 PM, and at Anne at 1 PM. In addition to young people, visitors came to explore the premises…