Get Well Together

<< Background >>The restrictions brought by the Covid19 and the gradual decline in social life brought great difficulties for adolescents and young adults. Young people have become even more distant from each other, hate speech, discrimination started to increase. Exposure to exclusionary hate speech anddiscrimination bears negative emotional consequences for marginalized identities. Young people are among the most affected by the mental effects of the pandemic, according to a new UN plan to address COVID19. According to the ILO study, 50% of young people are likely to experience anxiety or depression, with an additional 17% likely to be affected. Getting young people heard is critical to implement more inclusive measures to combat these crises that young people face daily. A significant and increasing number of young people across Europe are expressing their concern at the prevalence of mental health issues such as high stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses amongst their peers. Considering all these reasons, we wanted to develop an inclusive intersectional approach to providing mental health and wellbeing for all, especially marginalized groups and disadvantaged youth, in all the work to be carried out throughout the project. << Objectives >>The Covid-19 pandemic dramatically affected the youth sector: few organisations managed to move their activities online to have a significant outreach to young people – esp. to those with fewer opportunities. Policymakers tried to rapidly develop a set of measures to tackle the current challenges, researchers have launched different projects and initiatives to document the impact of Covid-19.The main aim of the project was to increase the mental wellbeing of marginalized youth who face more discrimination and exclusion due to Covid-19 through youth work. The objectives of the project: to increase the capacity of 8 youth workers about combining their work with greenskills, sportive activities, healthy nutrition methods and other essentials of mental wellbeing by enabling them to act as role models of healthy lifestyles for young people and collect innovative methods; to raise the participation and involvement of 40 marginalized young people by gracing them with a healthy mindset and showing different opportunities to engage themselves in and increasing their self-esteem to be more aware about themselves; to prepare a guideline on how to work with marginalized groups by using innovative methods on mental health and social inclusion<< Implementation >>There was a number of impactful activities planned, but unfortunately, we have only managed to work on the management of the project and planning of the tasks and activities of the project, but could not go to the actual implementation of activities stage due to the change of partners that was not approved by the National Agency. However, we worked on the implementation of the project for around 3 months. << Results >>The desired result of the project was to create an opportunity to increase the mental health and wellbeing of marginalized youth which have been affected badly by the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges. Also, we project seeked to support the inclusion of young marginalized people by teaching them new approaches and methods of wellbeing. The partnership was also planning to upscale the capacity of youth work by gracing them with new innovative skills and raise the participation level of marginalized youth through more modern youth work. Unfortunately, these results could not be achieved due to termination of the project in its beginning phases.