Any search for connections between non-formal learning and empowerment requires some consensus on terms. Empowerment is defined as a ‘multidimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives. It is a process that fosters power in people for use in their own lives, their communities and in their society, by acting on issues they define as important’. In practice, what non-formal learning offers in terms of empowering young people is the following.

• (i) Creating an understanding of how society (and local communities) works based on practical involvement in projects (specifically within youth initiatives). The principles and core themes of the EU youth programmes, such as participation, active (European) citizenship, a multicultural approach and inclusion, have contributed to young people’s understanding of what those terms mean in practice and how they can be lived.
• (ii) Supporting young people in discovering different pathways to education, employment and jobs and, in a wider sense, how they would like to build their future (such discovery is strongly embedded within the European Voluntary Service - EVS).
• (iii) Motivating young people to become actors of change. Young people have an opportunity to explore issues and to become actively involved in dealing with them. They learn how to take matters into their own hands, to progress beyond complaining and to influence constructive change.

Non-formal learning activities help young people to be capable of change. Views on the results of such change depend on the perspective taken. Much of empowerment relates to learning and to the ability to apply learning outcomes in life, in terms of gained competences, both personal and professional. The process can be examined from at least three distinct bases. Taking account of these different focuses is important when supporting empowerment within projects and communicating the learning outcomes to different stakeholders.

Individual perspective — focus on attitude

Young people, especially those without previous experience of learning outside the school environment, are often not aware of their strengths and frequently lack belief in their capacity to achieve anything. It is important to provide them with the opportunity to test their abilities, and to succeed and build up confidence. Positive experience of this sort, either individual or shared by a group, can change the attitude of young people towards themselves and their perception of their own capacity. Changing attitudes is internal to each individual, and even though it can be verbally communicated by participants to the outside world, only through action can it be observed.

Collective/group perspective — focus on skills

Attitudes are internal, but the group perspective of a change is often based on seeing and perceiving evolved skills. For instance, participants who may have been timid and lacking in confidence to speak English at the beginning of a youth exchange are at the end able to communicate with each other, using diverse ways for making themselves understood. Or a participant who was shy about speaking in front of a group becomes capable of running a short energiser for the whole group by the end of the project. Or a person continually asking what to do at the beginning of the project ends up coordinating the work of a small group in the kitchen. Many more examples attest to the fact that perceiving learning outcomes is often a matter of assessing personal skills shown in practice. The group can perceive whether or not participants have learned and have started to feel more comfortable in using their competences (ergo have been empowered to do so).

Societal perspective — focus on knowledge and resulting competences

From a wider point of view, developing competences is important, and even more important is how far the young people are able to persuade others of what they have learned and how they make use of it later. As distinct from the previous perspective, where skills are understood through interaction within a group or through achieving a shared outcome, the societal perspective offers cognitive and descriptive assessment — a need to communicate one’s learning based on analysis, and at the same time use of the competences acquired. A part of this perspective stresses that the competences shall serve for a greater good, for example by supporting others, getting involved in voluntary or other public activities or starting up one’s own project or organisation. Within this perspective, this proves that the learning has happened and the learner is able to use their competences in real-life situations, so he/she is not the sole beneficiary of the learning.

Non-formal learning activities within the EU youth programmes focus on one or another of these perspectives, and sometimes on two or even all three. The direction chosen by the organisers depends on the type of activity, the participants’ level of experience and the environment where the activities take place. But in all cases there are outcomes connected to empowerment. The choice is based on the simple premise that non-formal learning provides space and opportunity for young people to try things out, to make mistakes and to learn from them. In this way they can gain self-confidence based on better understanding, in terms of feeling and knowing, their own capacities and how they can use them.

Different methodologies and approaches have been generated through the support provided via the EU youth programmes, such as training and cooperation activities or pools of coaches and trainers organised by the national agencies. These respond well to the learning needs of programme beneficiaries, increasing their competences and so the quality of youth work.