Details of the member organisation / center
Name: ACT for SOCIETY Centre
Street address: Rruga “Blv. Zhanë D’ark” Nd.61, H.5, Ap.24.
City: Tirane
Region: Albania
Country: Albania
E-mail: actfsociety@gmail.com
Website: http://www.actforsocietycenter.org/
Telephone: +355 (0)445074477
Contact person
Mrs Armela Pengili
Position/function: Executive Director
Contact Email: pengiliarmela@gmail.com
Contact Telephone: +355698304533
Profile of the member organisation/center
Type of organisation: Non Profit Organization
Status of organisation: non-governmental
Activity level of organisation: national
Short description of organisation / center:
We are an Albanian NGO, established in January 2012, with a special focus on young generation and European values. ACT for SOCIETY Centre believes in the power of change. It aims at making this change happen through “…new, creative, and effective strategies and initiatives…“
ACT for SOCIETY Centre recognizes that Albanian’s young democracy must become increasingly self-reliant and lead its own development. In the current situation, the pressing need is to encourage a greater capacity development, awareness, and participation by Albanian institutions and local communities.
ACT for SOCIETY Centre also believes that best results are produced through the right combination of development project integrating strong capacity development thus enabling project actors and beneficiaries to implement effective and efficient projects that also provide for impact on society and sustainability of results.
We are currently working with three projects.
Be a Man Club is one of our campaigns. “Be a man” lifestyles campaign, which aims to reinforce key messages of the Young Men Initiative and encourage changes at the school level and beyond. The campaign is supported by variety of educational materials, social media and “activities” organized and conducted by the students, members of “Be a man” clubs (abbreviated BMC). Members of “Be a man” clubs are both young men and women, and in the region they gather several hundred active members. In the Balkans, there are currently 40 active “Be a man” clubs with 1,500 active members. Leading philosophy of the Young Men Initiative is that young men should not be seen as an obstacle to peace and gender equality, but as key allies in the promotion of non-violent, healthy relationships and communities.
Young women, as active members of the community, should be active participants in society, as well as agents of change. We always work with young people and they are always welcomed to our office for everything that they need.
We focus on gender equality and equity, human rights, anti-violence and anti-extremism, participation in democracy, youth capacity-building.
Objectives :
- Advocacy and awareness-raising, focusing on human rights topic;
- Promote human rights and inclusiveness of marginalized groups and vulnerable groups;
- Enhance youth activities through non-formal education;
- Stimulate transparent decision-making processes in democracy;
- Embrace think-tank ideology and stimulate research;
- Active participation in international, regional and national networks;
- Peace – Building through Culture and Art.
ACT for SOCIETY Center has immensely invested in human resources development. Upon its establishment, our staff received comprehensive training and technical support including training retreats, training of trainers/training of consultants, regional internships, and on-the-job training that is followed by continuous professional and personal development.
We are Accredited for EVS (European Volunteer Service) – Sending, Receiving and Coordinating Organisation with code 2015-1-SI02-KA110-013235 within the European Commission’s Erasmus+/ Youth in Action Programme.
Integration of the intercultural learning, human rights education and education for active citizenship in its activities:
Until our establishment we have organized more than 35 projects, projects with focus on gender, human rights, anticipation, art andculture. In focus is Non-Formal Learning Techniques, we have organized: info sessions Training Courses, Youth Exchange, seminars, study sessions, conferences, street actions, and different campaigns etc.
Our experience in organization of international youth activities and the training of youth workers in multinational and multicultural context:
All our training courses have been organized in international context with the cooperation of minimum 7-9 European countries. Our first experience was in 2013 with one Training Course in Italy. We have run a project by our organization called: Gender in Youth Work: Perspectives, Challenges and Opportunity, in collaboration with 9 partners from the region and European Countries. We are partners in more than 20 Youth in Action and Erasmus+ Projects.
The mechanisms we use in our organization / center in terms of ensuring the participation of young people in preparation and realization of our activities:
To involve more young people in our center we are using our website and pages in social networks for calls, another thing that we have is a club with our volunteers, they are free to create idea for different projects, especially in projects with schools and universities. Always we are using brainstorming and discussions in our daily work.
Where we see the role of our organization / center in promotion and implementation of the youth policies of Council of Europe in our country, region and internationally:
One of our main goals is to educate young people on human rights, gender and extremism, with the support of our donors we are working on those topics especially by using non-formal education methodology. Second but not last is to inform young people about youth policy of European Union by using EU programmes and tools as: Erasmus+ (Youth in Action – before Erasmus+). We have and one program that is called MasterPeace, when we are creating different projects using Art and Theater as tools of non-formal education.
The facilities of our organization / center(accommodation, educational facilities, training staff, specific methodologies etc.).
Our Center has all necessary technical and educational equipmentfor working with young people and for their development as: working areas with computers, printers, projector, boards, books and brochures, WiFi, video camera, place for discussions..etc
The staffs of our Center is well-trained professionals in youth issues, gender issue, unemployment, EU integration process, good governance and reinforcement of institutions etc. All these experience and skills have come because of lots of trainings in which they have been involved and because of the experience they have gained in the implementation of many projects. This is a guarantee that they have the right knowledge and the experience to fully implement all the activities foreseen in this project to be implemented by ACT for SOCIETY Center.
Our priorities / fields of interest for cooperation with other members of the Network in the sphere of intercultural learning:
- Non-Formal Education;
- Youth workers education;
- Intercultural learning;
- Lifelong Learning;
- European Voluntary Service.