Gumpendorfer Straße 142
1060 Vienna
Austria
- Youth and education
Association for Active Life and Education is Vienna based NGO, active since 2019 and in 2022 legal form was established. ACTIVE has 2 board members, 7 volunteers and more than 20 members. Primary goal is educating young people in Vienna through non-formal education, art and sport. Apart from young people, ACTIVE focuses its work on people with fewer opportunities, vulnerable and marginalized groups, migrants coming to Vienna or the surrounding area, NEETs and young people from rural areas. The main aim is to give opportunities to young people, enable them to develop and improve various skills essential for their employability and better life. Additionally, ACTIVE continuously supports the recognition of youth work and promotes active citizenship.
Budgetary resources of ACTIVE are 300 € per year.
Among regular local acivities are seminars, sport events, language courses, hikes, team-building activities etc.
Primary goal is educating members of the organization and young people in Vienna through non-formal education, art and sport.
Goals:
Promote healthy lifestyle and well-being and encourage young people to participate in sport and physical activity,
Promote active citizenship and young people’s sense of initiative
Increase employability of young people
Support development of green skills and environmental protection
Improve young people’s digital skills and digital readiness
Support the development of non-formal education,
Cooperate with other organizations within the European Union on educational projects,
Enable young people to get to know and respect the culture of other European countries through various mobility programs,
Promote cultural heritage and historical paths of Austria and Europe and rediscover cultural routes of Europe
The social integration and support of people with fewer opportunities,
Promote equal opportunities for all and tackle discrimination
ACTIVE offers a broad spectrum of cultural activities ranging from free time activities via games and sports through to intercultural events for 150 learners per year. Types of events and activities are also ranging from focused on young people through migrants to generation spanning events. Secondly, it covers a broad range of continuing education. ACTIVE offers occupational training seminars in the field of outdoor sports and language lessons, eco-friendly courses for senior citizens and migrants, and education and recreation courses for youngsters and seniors too. Participants acquire recognized training certificates and are qualified as multipliers. ACTIVE provides safe space and necessary equipment for a number of active citizens which like to be physically active and enjoy sports in nature. The activities are inclusive and participatory as well as tailored to the specific needs
and interests of young children, youth, adults or senior citizens.
ACTIVE designs its activities to be in line with promoting active citizenship and youth entrepreneurship. The organization gives young people a chance to attend various projects, youth exchanges and seminars where they can improve their skills, better understand common values and civic engagement and develop a sense of initiative. Improvement of digital skills of young people is also one of ACTIVE’s priorities since it contributes to their employability. During international and local activities, different technologies are used and provided to participants. Since ACTIVE organizes a lot of sport events, those are also enriched by implementing the newest technologies. The organization is also active on social media, using it to raise awareness about the main topics of interest (youth participation, active citizenship, Erasmus+ program, sustainability, sports, youth work etc.)
To ensure social inclusion of all groups, ACTIVE’s volunteers regularly provide online language classes, focusing mostly on German language. The classes are free to attend and encompass a range of language levels and topics of interest depending on the demand of the participants.
ACTIVE team members have participated in multiple trainings and initiatives under the Erasmus+ and ACTIVE has experienced Erasmus+ Sport projects through volunteer activities implementing eco-friendly workshops and activities in Vienna woods. ACTIVE was not included in Eco-friendly sport as an official partner. The members of the organization joined the challenge and organized a clean-up of natural areas used for practicing sports in 7 EU countries.
All ACTIVE’s activities are in line with eco-friendly approaches and we take advantage of any chance to promote environmental protection and conservation. Organizing nature clean-ups, eco-friendly sport activities, supporting digital transformation and sustainable way of managing the organization all make ACTIVE an environmentally conscious and friendly organization.
ACTIVE regularly organizes hiking events in Vienna woods led by our members and volunteers. Events are open, available for anyone to join, but especially targeting young people and migrants living in Vienna and surrounding areas. The aim is to promote physical activity of young people, give them an opportunity to escape from their sedentary lifestyle and help them to integrate into the society by participating in the events. Events are many times attended by people new to the city and country and it is a great chance to meet new like-minded people and join a slowly growing network of young hikers. The hikes are always designed in an inclusive way, choosing appropriate difficulty, length and usually the are also combined with other activities such as plogging, herbal hiking, planting trees etc. Hiking itself is promoting social inclusion by not giving barriers to participation in physical activity.
Being a new and growing organization we currently operate on local level and have started to engage also in international European projects. Our next steps would include creating a bridge between young people from the community participating in our projects and activities and local policy makers. As members of the ALF Network we could contribute to the Network's activities and initiatives in Vienna, Austria and help to extend the outreach of the Network. Since our organization currently mostly focuses on youth work, active citizenship, sustainability and physical activity, we could contribute to the content of ALF Network in those fields.
As a recent and relatively small organization, we would like to elevate our activities on an international cooperation and support other organizations focusing on the development of young people and their civic engagement. Our goal is to reach local policymakers and help local people to participate in policy-making mostly in areas of interest of ACTIVE: youth participation, sustainability, active citizenship, sport etc. Joing the ALF Network will help us to achieve these goals , extend our range of activities, provide our services to other members and additionally also find interesting partners for futher cooperations with the aim of empowering young people in Europe and further.