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1. Intercontinental youth work cooperation

2. Development cooperation activities

Intercontinental youth work cooperation

Intercontinental youth work cooperation is not really strong in the public policy of the Czech Republic. It is usually the domain of charities, youth organizations and other NGOs.

The only specific sources of public support to the intercontinental youth work cooperation is thus the European programme Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps.

• The European Solidarity Corps (ESC) is an EU programme for young people aged 18–30 supporting solidarity and community-based activities, including environmental and climate projects. In the Czech Republic, the programme is implemented by the Centre for International Cooperation in Education (DZS). It enables young people to:
  • participate in volunteering projects in the Czech Republic and abroad,
  • engage in traineeships or jobs with a solidarity focus,
  • gain practical skills and international experience.
• Beyond the European Solidarity Corps, the Erasmus+ programme offers Youth Exchanges that enable young people (13–30) to travel and collaborate on international projects, including sustainable and global themes. 
  Erasmus+ also includes Capacity Building in the Field of Youth, supporting international partnerships between youth organisations and cooperative projects involving youth work across EU and partner countries. 

Ad-hoc support for international voluntary youth work activities, or more precisely cross-border volunteering, was provided by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports on the occasion of the European Year of Volunteering in 2011.

Youth organisations can, however, apply for support of such activities within the standard state subsidy scheme for youth work, if they are interested. For details on the subsidy scheme see Chapter 1.7.

Development cooperation activities

Development cooperation activities of young people are not really strong in the public policy of the Czech Republic. It is usually the domain of Charities, youth organisations and NGOs or the wider public and general state development cooperation policies (with no direct mentioning of youth work and youth policy). 

The only specific source of public support for young people and their development cooperation activities is the regular subsidy scheme of the Czech Development Agency for the development activities of NGOs. However, none of its programmes targets specifically young people, they can be just part of the supported projects.