The GEYC Resources Center handbook provides information about an online center that offers free tools and resources to help individuals and organizations. The center is coordinated by the Group of European Youth for Change and has over 250 resources across topics like social media, human rights, education, and personal development. It aims to digitally empower young people by providing access to tools, education, and networking opportunities. The handbook describes the center's activities like training New Media Ambassadors to represent and develop the center, as well as projects and events conducted to promote the resources and their use.

1. GEYC RESOURCES CENTER
HANDBOOK
http://resources.geyc.ro/
https://www.facebook.com/resources.geyc.ro
@GEYCRomania
office@geyc.ro

2. WHAT?
The Resources Center is aimed to help both individuals and organizations in their
work, by offering free online tools and a platform for international cooperation
and networking. It is coordinated by the Group of the European Youth for Change
– GEYC.
Do you need online tools in order to get more involved in online activism? Since its
launch, the Center has developed and has now about 250 resources. The
numbers are growing and anyone can contribute to its improvement by filling in an online form. The
activity on the website is totally safe. Each resource has a short description and the external link to its
official source. There is also a section with tool reviews. The page does not request downloading or
registring nor redirects to suspicious websites.
WHO?
Group of the European Youth for Change - GEYC is a Romanian
youth group founded in 2010. Its mission is to empower young people
to change their community. We are young people working with young
people through both peer-to-peer education and mass communication
supported by leaders. GEYC is a member of Advisory Council on
Youth of the Ministry of Youth and Sport of the Romanian Government.
Fields of action:
● Education;
● Social media;
● Human rights protection;
● Corporate social responsibility;
● Entrepreneurship;
Activities:
● Educational projects (seminars,
conferences, training, summer schools);
● Intercultural projects (youth exchanges,
study visits, networking events);
● Research projects;
● Challenges;
● Raising awareness campaigns;
WHEN?
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The Resources Center was launched on the 21 of March 2013 - the International Day for the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination-, together with the official launch of the Young People Combating
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Hate Speech On-line campaign of Council of Europe. It was the first Romanian initiative to support it.
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Young People Combating Hate Speech On-line is a project of the Council of Europe’s youth sector to be run
between 2012 and 2014. The project aims to combat racism and discrimination in their online expression of hate
speech by equipping young people and youth organisations with the competences necessary to recognize and act
against such human rights violations.
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3. WHY?
AIM:
to digitally empower young people all over the world to create a positive change in their
communities by offering access to tools, free education and networking.
OBJECTIVES:
● offering free access to new media education;
● providing online resources for youth and non profit work;
● encouraging the sharing of good practices among non profit organisations at European and
international level;
● stimulating networking between non profit organisations at European and international level;
TESTIMONIALS
GEYC Center of resources is your place of
simple, free and ready to use resources. You
can find here various tutorials, articles or tools to
download just to make your professional and
personal life easier. Enjoy!
[Gabriel Brezoiu - General Manager at GEYC,
Romania]
GEYC Resources Center is a great idea! We
need to develop some New Media training
programs together for Romanian young people.
[Nicolae Bǎnicioiu, Minister of Your and Sport,
Romania]
Well done! The resources center is a great tool
to confront. I will take it for my work.
[Dr. Angelica Caspanello - Europe Office,
Municipality of Roccalumera, Italy]
As a school partnership project coordinator and
a youth leader I think such a resources center
would be very practical and serviceable for
individuals and organizations. I am sure I will
use it whenever I need a free multimedia tool in
my work.
[Esra Atay, Teacher and Project coordinator at
Ministry of National Education, Turkey]
I think it's a good idea, well done!
[Maria Andolfo, Eurodesk reprezentative at
Comune di Ali Terme, Italy]
A user friendly website for both individuals and
NGOs which can foster the organizational
capacity. Also love the idea of supporting the
campaign against hate speech on-line!
[Saide Bozoclu, EVS at AMSED, France]
Great idea ! This website provide useful tools,
that allow to gain time spent to search tools on
the net including the documentation. Stop
racism, be like a panda, he's black, he's white,
he's Asian...
[Walid Benghabrit, University of Montpellier II,
France]
Good idea! I am a supporter of the network ... it
would be interesting to collaborate.
[Dr. Angelica Caspanello, Projects Manager
Organization for the development of the territory
"New Projects", Italy]
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4. PROJECT DIMENSIONS
Context: Nowadays, technology is changing very fast and it influences many
fields of our life. Digital gap is affecting people at all ages. Young people are
mostly affected when they need to enter the labour market or to face its
challenges. GEYC Resources Center is an innovative model of European
and international cooperation in the youth field.
Innovation
The educational process is structured in 3 parts: Informing, offering tools and training. Its
innovative approach comes first at system level: the 3 parts are not necessary separated, but
done simultaneously and with a synergic effect. On the other side, each structure is innovative
itself: the informing and raising awareness part is done continuously by involving an intercultural
team of New Media Ambassadors and have a wide range of content from new resources, news
in the field to questions and entertainment for our audiences; the resources are provided on 7
different categories, the selection criteria being quite simple: should be free, available online
and having a specific utility. The content we provide is filtered and simply explained (3-5 lines
only) in order to facilitate a quick understanding. Regarding the training part, the design is
innovative in the sense of its flexibility of content and methods: being planned for an intercultural
group with very diverse backgrounds and expectations is challenging and you need to be ready
to adapt.
Equal opportunities
Offering equal opportunities and having a special focus on vulnerable groups are one of
the key concerns of GEYC and GEYC Resources Center. Every person understanding English
and connected to Internet could access the tools we offer without any prior registration. As for
more complex opportunities such as ”New Media Ambassadors” and other training programs
there is always an application process where we take a look at people background and
motivation. However, are aware that despite its quite wide range approach it is still restrictive in
certain ways: not everybody has a regular access to Internet (that's why we plan to open a
Digital Youth Center) and not everybody understands English (we are planning to translate it in
the near future in French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian etc.).
However, it is important to mention that we manage to involve people from African and
European developing countries, but also from post-conflict countries such as Iraq or Bosnia and
Herzegovina. In those places social media importance is crucial in order to get well informed
and to spread a message to a wide audience.
Relevance and quality
Speaking about the resources we offer:
- Relevance: we are currently introducing a review section where users could give a more
detailed feedback for certain resources. So far, the feedback role was held by the Like
Facebook button;
- Quality: is our major concern to offer useful resources. Therefore, all NMA interns are required
to provide a feedback on this regard are we are periodically updating our categories
descriptions and policies. The content we offer is original ;
Speaking about the training programs we offer (NMA and other):
- Relevance: in the application forms we always ask people about their expectations and trying
to adapt the format to their needs, the main directions being to make it more specific, not
include some particular areas of interest or give more space to sharing and networking;
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5. - Quality: the training programs are designed to offer 3 categories of skills: social media and
communication, in order to become opinion leaders in their contexts; new media tools, so that
they could create their own content easily and sharing & networking in order to capacitate them
to further develop the work done in this frame;
Social transformation
GEYC Resources Center is transforming the way we understand education as it
enhance the role of informal part. Any users can easily search for the content they are
interested in and auto-educate themselves. The foreseen impact is intense as we believe that
people searching to solve a specific issue are running out of time so that we support them to
find a quick solution through a clear a simple description and keywords. This part is done on a
large scale as any Internet user can take benefit.
On the other side, regarding training activities we believe the impact is much more
intense because we are spending more time on the learning process and the trainees tend to
develop a wide range of skills. By now, we had 40 graduates in the NMA internship program
and over 50 in 2 other training programs. For example, one NMA alumni said: ”When I was
applying for the internship in GEYC Resources Center I hoped to gain hands-on experience
online, promoting social media and new tools for young people. My expectations came true.
With my colleagues who are very enthusiastic people we added new useful resources to the
website, developed new ideas and started new exciting programs! I always felt that any
contribution from me or from my colleagues will be appreciated by many people afterwards.”
(Ekaterina Shishkina, New Media Ambassador 1, Germany). Other such testimonials are
available here: http://resources.geyc.ro/p/testimonials.html.
Community involvement
”Think global, act local” corresponds to the project philosophy. For example, NMA
interns are strongly encouraged to take advantage of their local contexts and to present the
Resources Center over there, to create debates and to upload new resources which are more
relevant for their local communities. Moreover, NMAs are our voice at local level. They help us
to shape, implement and evaluate the center. In this way, locals feedback is heard at
international level.
On the other side, when we organize specific initiative in the frame of GEYC RC (for
example, SMYLE European youth exchange on the topic of how digital skills improve young
people employment), we do partnerships with the government, local authorities, companies,
other NGOs and media in order to support these projects. According to their mission and to the
public policies available we adapt our initiative to be more relevant for their needs as well.
Continuous development
During their practical stage, NMAs are required to monitor what is happening to the
Resources Center so that they could give their input in the end and make their activitiy more
relevant. In the final report they provide, they evaluate the logistics, communication and
educational parts, but also they come with specific ideas that could contribute to the project
development.
For example, when we launched the center we had only 2 categories of resources,
social media and multimedia. The next 5 were opened after their feedback. The same with the
Facebook page and so on. For a clear timeline of the developments please check this link:
http://resources.geyc.ro/p/project.html.
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6. HOW?
There are seven (7) different categories of free online resources:
HUMAN RIGHTS
Human rights are rights inherent
to all human beings, whatever
our
nationality,
place
of
residence, sex, national or
ethnic origin, colour, religion,
language, or any other status.
We are all equally entitled to our human rights
without discrimination. These rights are all
interrelated, interdependent and indivisible. In
HR category, you can find many interesting tools
that raise awareness on this topic.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Is everything related to social
networks (Facebook, Twitter,
Google plus, Youtube, Linkedin
etc.). How can you use it for
different purposes, tutorials, tips
and tricks, pros and cons, effects of social
media, changes it produces in our life, in our
society and so on, sharing stuff among your
friends and colleagues – these are some of the
things you can find in SM category.
MULTIMEDIA
Is related to audio, video,
painting,
photos,
online
illustrations and any mix of these
ones. Multimedia tools can
include tutorials, software, tips
and tricks on how to do it (how
to record an audio etc.), how to edit (e.g. an
audio that you just recorded) and how to share it
(publish it online, send it by e-mail, export it
etc.).
COMMUNICATION
It deals with transferring a
message from somebody to
somebody else. It could be
tutorials, explanations, study
cases, methods, tips and
tricks about communication in our personal
and/or
professional
life
(business
communication). Methods, articles, case studies
and books are also welcome.
MANAGEMENT & MARKETING
The resources in this category can be about the
management and marketing
of any sector of activity:
companies, NGOs or public
institutions. It can include
methods, theories, practices, case studies, pros
and cons and anything that could bring an added
value in these fields.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
The resources in this
category are related to
"activities
that
improve
awareness and identity,
develop
talents
and
potential, build human capital and facilitate
employability, enhance quality of life and
contribute to the realization of dreams and
aspirations. The concept is not limited to selfhelp but includes formal and informal activities
for developing others in roles such as teacher,
guide, counselor, manager, life coach or mentor"
(Wikipedia).
EDUCATION
"Education in its general sense
is a form of learning in which the
knowledge, skills, and habits of
a
group
of
people
are
transferred from one generation to the next
through teaching, training, or research. Any
experience that has a formative effect on the
way one thinks, feels, or acts may be considered
educational" (Wikipedia). Therefore, there can
be tools related to learning, teaching for any
target group, in any setting, in both formal and
non-formal education.
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7. ACTIVITIES

NEW MEDIA AMBASSADORS (NMA)
NMAs are volunteers all around the world entitled to represent, develop and promote the Resources
Center at local and national level in compliance with GEYC team guidelines.
Objectives
NMA is a complex practical online training with both professional and personal objectives as following:
Obj.
Professional
(aimed for GEYC Resources Center)
Personal
(aimed for New Media Ambassadors)
O1
Developing the content of GEYC Resources
Center (http://resources.geyc.ro/)
Raising new media skills (find out about other new
media resources, testing them, sharing them)
O2
Promoting GEYC Resources Center
Raising communication, PR and social media skills
O3
Increasing the efficiency of GEYC Resources
Center team
Developing sense of initiative and creativity skills

PROJECTS
- January - October 2014: SMARTER - Social Media Academy: Raise Teen Employability Resources
(YiA, 4.3), a training course in Bucharest, Romania gathering 40 youth workers from 14 countries.
rd
- November - December 2013: New Media Ambassadors (3 generation) plan, promote, organize and
judge "Find a resource, test a resource", the very first contest we organized for our Facebook page fans.
- August - December 2013: SMYLE - Social Media & Youth - Learning for Employment (YiA, 1.1),
aimed to raise awareness on the importance of social media for the employability of young people.
- August 2013 - February 2014: New Media Ambassadors Training Course (YiA, 4.3) in Newcastle, UK.
28 young people, youth workers, project managers and youth leaders from 12 countries gather to find out
more about GEYC Resources Center and to enhance their new media skills. Some of them are former or
future NMA interns.

EVENTS
- SMYLE National Conference (Bucharest, Romania) - 17.12.2013. GEYC Resources Center was
presented to SMYLE National Conference participants. We focused on the benefits of using the center
and on the "NMA" internship program which had an open call at that moment.
- Annual meeting of woman's organisations (Jahorina, Bosnia & Herzegovina) - December 2013.
Ivana Stanković (NMA 3) has presented New Media Ambassadors Internship Programme and GEYC
Resources Center during an IT training for annual meeting of woman's organisations sponsored by
Swedish foundation Kvinna till Kvinna.
- Virgil Madgearu Economic College (Ploiesti, Romania) - December 2013. Ana Nedelcu, member of
GEYC Community, presented GEYC Resources Center to a group of high-school students from Virgil
Madgearu Economic College (Ploiesti, Romania). Her initiative was part of a series of non-formal
activities dedicated to the celebration of the days of this college. Ana disseminated information about the
European Voluntary Service programe, using her concrete example and presented some local and
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8. national resources, meant to help youths to get informed and access various learning opportunities,
focusing on the free online tools that GEYC RC offers;
- Find a resource, test a resource
Contest - November - December 2013.
rd
New Media Ambassadors (3 generation)
planned, promoted, organized and judged
an online competition, aimed to challenge
the visitors of the Center to experience its
available tools and to give a feedback to
the online community.
- Gaudeamus Bookfair (Bucharest,
Romania) - 20-24/11/2013. GEYC
Resources Center had an exhibition at
the 9th edition of the "National Salon of
Inventions and Scientific Creativity for
Youth" organized by Romanian Ministry of
Youth and Sport;
- JU Peta gimnazija, (Sarajevo, Bosnia
& Herzegovina) - May 2013. Vanja Cakić
& Andrea Dizdarević, two of the GEYC Resources Center's New Media Ambassadors, have started a
promotional campaign at local level and held an informative session in JU Peta gimnazija, Sarajevo,
Bosnia & Herzegovina. The presentation targeted high school students from the second grade (the school
system in Bosnia & Herzegovina: elementary school has 8 grades, while high school has 4. This means
that the audience consisted out of 16/17 year old's).

NO HATE SPEECH MOVEMENT
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# 21 of March 2013
- Official launch of the Resources Center, together with No hate speech movement launch and the
celebration of the International day against racism.
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# 1 of May 2013
- Launch of New Media Ambassadors, a 2-3 months
periodical international internship aimed to build
participants new media skills in order to empower them to
fight hate speech online and to run their own campaigns.
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# 9 of November 2013, support of ”Wipe out online hate”
campaign on the International Day against Fascism and Antisemitism
- Launch of Human Rights category
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- Online poster exhibition: The 3 generation of NMAs used free online tools from GEYC Resources
Center to create posters on the topic of No Hate Speech. The album was posted online on Facebook
page and promoted by the volunteers.
- Video on the topic of No hate speech: NMA3 had the initiative to create a video, linking various
opinions on “No hate speech” from people around the world. The video was posted online on Facebook,
Youtube and the official website of No hate Speech movement.
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