Estonian National Youth Council (ENL) is an umbrella organization established in 2002 and unites 53 youth organisations throughout Estonia.
Legal Form
Platform – collective of organisations
Objectives
– ENL promotes cooperation between youth associations and active participation of young people in society.
– ENL is working for the recognition and participation of young people and in order to create a better working environment for youth organisations.
Main Activities
– Estonian National Youth Council (ENL) organizes projects and campaigns in order to develop areas that concern youth and are important to them.
– Participation Project and Participation Metro give an interactive, simple and fun overview of what is participation, why it’s important to participate, how to participate and how to teach participation (ENL has created a simulation game and materials for teaching participation and citizen activity).
– Shadow Elections is a civic education project that gave in 2009 before the elections the possibility to elect also for those young people, who are not of voting age yet. In the capital Tallinn and the second largest city, Tartu from the 5th to 8th of October ENL organized Shadow Elections, which gave the possibility to vote from age 14. The lists of candidates were real, the voting boxes were real and the program that analyzed the votes and put together the list of city councils was also the very same used in local elections during real elections. The only difference was that youth was simulated, but the voice of youth was real and statistics and results were published to the media. The aim of the project was to motivate young people to grow interested in social matters and politics in general and to become an active citizen who wants to participate and has the ability to decide according to analysis, facts and information, not by advertisement or nice photograph. The election participation was very high and ENL plans to continue with shadow electing also in the year 2011 saw parliament elections, the 2013 local elections and ENL will be part of the League of Young Voters project in 2014.
– The Quality Evaluation of Youth Organizations – ENL works for better and stronger youth organizations and has created a self-evaluation handbook for youth organizations. The book contains easier and more complicated methods which help the youth activists to evaluate the progress of their own organization and develop it for the better.
– Youth mainstreaming, Youth politics and legislation – ENL works regularly with researchers, legislation and ministries and strives for better youth policy. ENL participates in working groups, round tables and other organs as an expert in the youth field.