Article by Andrea Rodriguez, RIPESS Europe

The YOU(th) CARE: Collective Action for Justice and Change initiative, funded by the European Union’s DEAR program, is launching a Call for Proposals with a deadline of June 30, 2025. This opportunity aims to promote youth initiatives that promote social justice, ecological sustainability and gender equality, working from a solidarity, intersectional and caring perspective.

Up to €280,000 to fund projects with a social and transformative impact.
Find out about all the selection and participation criteria through our virtual platform: https://community.youth-care.eu/local/edwiserpagebuilder/page.php?id=7

Why a sub-funding process in the You(th)CARE project?
YOU(th)CARE was born in response to the multiple social and ecological crises facing the world. It supports youth collectives and citizen movements in Europe and the Mediterranean region, strengthening their transformative proposals based on care and collective power. Through training, funding and mentoring, it seeks to empower youth initiatives in these regions to make their voices and projects heard.
The You(th) CARE project started in December 2023 and since then, we have mapped youth initiatives in the 12 countries involved in the program (Spain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Czech Republic, Hungary, Albania, Serbia, Morocco, and Tunisia). We have conducted online and face-to-face trainings building a shared idea of care that can be applied to the reality of the different organizations. Depending on the contexts, we have also worked on anti-racism, mental health and the need for meeting spaces, all themes that arose from the need of the initiatives themselves. At the beginning of this year, we managed to draft the 12 agendas that gather the most important issues for youth in the different countries.

Now, it is time to take action and that is why we are opening this call for sub-funding, with the aim of providing opportunities and resources to these initiatives that are already doing excellent work in their local contexts.
Of course, the initiatives that have been working with us since the beginning within the You(th)CARE project will have more chances to get the grant, but we do not want to leave anyone out, so if you belong to any of these 12 countries, you are a youth initiative or you work with young people, and you have a transformative proposal, do not hesitate to participate in the call.

Areas of action and available funds
The call is divided into three lots, each with a specific funding range:

  • LEARN (Transformative Education) – From €6,000 to €10,000 – Initiatives in educational, school or non-formal communities: workshops, global citizenship training, awareness campaigns or educational exchanges.
  • ACT (Social and ecological initiatives) – From €8,000 to €15,000 – Community projects: regeneration of green spaces, sustainable markets, solidarity economy ventures, creation of safe spaces for young people.
  • ENGAGE (Advocacy and awareness campaigns) – From 6,000 to 10,000 € – Awareness and advocacy campaigns: political advocacy, youth presence in media and institutions, innovative activism.

Between 1 and 4 projects per country will be supported, seeking geographical balance.

We remind you that you must apply in partnership with at least one other initiative from your region and that the deadline is June 30.
Check all the requirements on our website and stay tuned for future calls.
If you have any questions please contact us at: andrea.rodriguez@ripess.org