Haven’t we all been affected in some way by the pandemic that plagues the planet? Don’t we or shouldn’t we experience this new crisis as an opportunity to reorganize our strengths and reinvent ourselves as professionals?

EKO team was very proud to be able to participate in this very interesting and informative webinar focusing on the consequences of the pandemic on Youth NGOs.

The purpose of the Webinar, entitled “Covid-19 and its impact on Υouth NGOs” was to examine the impact of the pandemic situation on Υouth organizations with respect to Erasmus+ Programs, Funding, Employment, Policies, Youth Engagement and many other aspects regarding Youth, as well as to propose new policies in support of NGOs. The Webinar took place on the 4th of December at 12:00 PM CET with a total duration of 2 hours.

The Webinar was organized by Intercultural Youth Dialogue Association (IYDA) along with the Institute for Sustainable Education and Development (ISEDE). Ms. Evanthia Gkouma, EKO’s ESC volunteer in Germany at IYDA was in charge or the designing, organizing and implementation of the webinar.

IYDA was founded in Bonn in 2017 as a sister organization of the Egyptian association IYDA Egypt from Cairo, founded 9 years ago. IYDA is a non-profit youth association whose purpose is to promote international, intercultural and youth exchanges, the promotion of European citizenship and tolerance in all areas of culture.

Isede EV is a non-profit organization that aims to improve learning and reorientation to enhance capacity development, transferable skills and knowledge sharing for sustainable development. ISEDE is a member of the Alliance for Global Development (AGD) that promotes the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Through the webinar all participating organizations from all over the Europe were ready to talk about the following topics.

• How has the COVID-19 impacted your operations and programs since March 2020?
• Has the public or private funding decreased or increased? Did your NGO receive any financial or non-financial support from public and private sector to keep your programs running?
• How has the pandemic influenced your human resources? Did you have to cut down your workforce because of financial or any other factors?
• How did your NGO manage the digital dependency after lockdowns in your respective countries?
• How did your NGO help and support the youth of your country to help them in these challenging times? What steps were taken to engage them as they were in lockdown?
• How do you see your future programs? Would they also be impacted as Europe is now facing a second wave of the corona pandemic?

By the end of the seminar, all participating NGOs from the different European countries had a complete picture of how the pandemicsituation affected them and at the same time we got inspiration and innovative ideas in order to equip our organizations with the best possible arsenal Post Covid-19 crisis.

Last but not least, we really want to thank our European Solidarity Corps (ESC) volunteer of IYDA organization for her contribution in this enriching webinar.

Ευχαριστούμε Εύη!