Call for youth initiatives: Maximum grant of €8 000 awarded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe for ad hoc youth initiatives ‘Living and building democracy’

Ednah Carrick July 9, 2026

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Closing Date: 1 September 2026

Call for youth initiatives: Maximum grant of €8 000 awarded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe for ad hoc youth initiatives ‘Living and building democracy’

Call for youth initiatives ‘Living and building democracy’!

The European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe is launching the call for proposals for ad hoc youth initiatives ‘Living and building democracy’.

This call for youth initiatives aims to support ad hoc youth initiatives that contribute to the following objectives:

Create space for young people to learn more about democracy and the role of human rights therein, in relation to specific challenges to democracies in the current European context.
Allow young people to develop their attitudes, views and specifically their critical thinking for building a democratic culture, including when using the digital space.
Equip young people with citizenship skills and ways to take active part in democratic processes and human rights promotion.

Types of activities

The activities that can be supported through these grants must respond to specific challenges young people face in engaging with democratic processes, such as challenges around misinformation and manipulation, disinformation and fake news, barriers to voting, limited participation in political and governance processes, etc. Initiatives need to demonstrate the relevance of the proposed intervention and explain how their initiative will tackle and overcome that specific challenge.

The initiatives that can be supported are awareness-raising and educational initiatives grounded in human rights education and education for democratic citizenship, with a strong focus on strengthening critical thinking of young people and fostering their participation in democratic processes and civic life, within a European/global context of erosion of democracy. The initiatives may include one or more workshops, training activities, awareness raising activities, or similar actions that directly engage young people in learning about democracy and human rights and learning how to be active therein.

Initiatives should in principle be innovative and show an added value in terms of thematic focus and methodology for the target group and/or the applicant organisation. The initiatives must show impact for young people and their local communities. They must have an educational dimension (for example, by exploring what democracy and human rights are, how a democracy functions, different ways how people can be involved in democracy, as well as the threats to democracy, and the links between democracy and human rights), as well as a youth engagement dimension, supporting and empowering young people to be part of democratic processes, youth organisations, civil society initiatives and other forms of participation.

Implementation period

The initiatives must start between 1 October and 31 December 2026 and have a duration of maximum 6 months. Reporting requirements shall be completed within 2 months after the end of the project at the latest. Projects completed prior to the date of submission of the application will be automatically excluded.

Participants

Participants should be young people interested in taking part in such initiatives, and who have had limited or no prior opportunities to engage in similar actions.

Activities must involve participants:

of whom at least 75% are not older than 30 years of age;
residing in at least one Council of Europe member State (with the possibility of including participants from other States, if justified);
with attention to the inclusion of young people with disabilities;
with specific considerations for gender equality and social inclusion of young people.
Applications not complying with these criteria will not be considered.

Grant amount

Applicants may request a maximum grant of €8 000 (eight thousand euro). The application form includes an estimated budget which must be consistent, accurate, clear, complete and cost-effective, considering the activities proposed.
Each grantee must contribute to the project either by way of its own resources or by contribution from third parties. Co-financing may take the form of financial or human resources or in-kind contributions.

Ineligible activities

The following activities are excluded:

operations of a commercial nature or profit-making ones;
the purchase of land or buildings;
the construction or renovation of buildings;
the purchase of fixed equipment for buildings;
tourism activities;
scholarships;
sports events and competitions;
school exchanges;
activities that are part of a school or university programme or that have a strictly vocational character;
activities which are not related with the Council of Europe’s work or priorities, and do not provide space to explore the Council of Europe’s standards, approaches and resources;
statutory meetings of youth organisations

The details of the call, including the eligibility, exclusion and award criteria, as well as application forms are now published on the website and applications are open for submission as from end of July for youth organisations registered with the EYF, by the deadline of 1 September 2026 23:59 CEST.