Grassroots youth in the Eastern Partnership

Project Summary

Project period: October 2023 – May 2025
Partners: Armenian Progressive Youth NGO, Youth Organization “STAN”
Funded by: Swedish Institute

GY-EAP is a partnership between Fryshuset (Sweden), STAN (Ukraine), and Armenian Progressive Youth (Armenia) aimed at developing a platform for youth workers and young activists supporting youth affected by war, displacement, violence, and crisis. By fostering cross-border cooperation, the initiative strengthens youth organizations working under challenging conditions, enhances their capacity for peacebuilding, and creates long-term impact.

Focusing on war and hard life circumstances, youth resilience and sustainability, and mental health in peacebuilding, the project actively involved youth workers and activists as co-creators and beneficiaries. A comprehensive needs analysis conducted across Ukraine, Armenia, and Sweden provided critical insights into the challenges they face, shaping the project’s design and ensuring its direct relevance to end users.

Context and Challenges

In recent years, both Ukraine and Sweden have faced significant societal challenges:

• Ukraine — war and mass displacement
• Sweden — complex social, environmental, and economic issues

In response, Fryshuset (Sweden) and STAN (Ukraine) partnered to exchange expertise and build community resilience. Later, Armenian Progressive Youth (APY) joined, bringing in perspectives from Armenia — another country heavily affected by conflict, where young people face instability, fear, and uncertainty.

Youth workers and activists in these regions often operate under high stress with minimal resources, especially when supporting internally displaced or marginalized youth. The project addresses these challenges by creating a collaborative space for sharing strategies, building resilience, and supporting mental well-being.

Activities

This project established a networking platform for organizations working with youth in the Eastern Partnership focusing on sustainability in times of crises. The organizations that were a part of the platform regularly met under structured forms both virtually and physically. The meetings of the participants had different themes (such as crisis/conflict, resilience and sustainability, EU-identity and marginalized groups, mental health) each time while still always following the main purpose of the platform which is to support and strengthen. The activities included:

• In-person exchange meetings hosted by Fryshuset (Sweden) and APY (Armenia)
• Needs assessment on youth resilience, with results shared with stakeholders
• Advocacy efforts through participation in conferences such as the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum

Exposure to each other’s contexts led to deeper knowledge of the project countries, with Swedish participants gaining nuanced perspectives on the complex political and humanitarian challenges in Armenia and Ukraine. Conversely, Eastern partners learned more about Sweden’s approach to civil society engagement, youth inclusion, and the role of government support.

Impact

In 2024, the project partners conducted national needs analyses in Sweden, Ukraine, and Armenia. Despite contextual differences, shared needs emerged, leading to the creation of “Brave Space” — a platform and network designed to strengthen the sustainability of CSOs and youth work. The platform is built on three main pillars: peer spaces for reflection and recovery, capacity building in trauma-informed approaches, resilience, and sustainability, and cross-sector collaboration for sustainable youth work.

The results of the needs analysis and the platform’s development were shared locally, nationally, and internationally with CSOs, humanitarian organizations, government agencies, community resilience specialists, peacebuilding experts, and youth workers. In total, the platform and research outcomes have reached over 25 national and transnational stakeholders across Sweden, Ukraine, Armenia, and beyond. The Brave Space platform and its findings were also presented at several major international events, including the Berlin Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) 2024, the Eastern Partnership Forum 2025, and the Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development 2025.

The project significantly strengthened the knowledge and tools of participants, with 91% reporting improvement in three key areas: peacebuilding, individual resilience before, during, and after conflict, and mental health and personal sustainability. Its impact now extends beyond the original partnership, influencing youth programming and advocacy priorities at the national level in Ukraine.

The “Youth Leadership in Crises” needs analysis is now used not only within the Brave Space network but also by STAN and other Ukrainian organizations as a strategic planning tool. New collaborations have also emerged, such as the partnership between STAN and the Swedish Agency for Psychological Defense, which is expected to expand youth access to psychological defense information in 2025 and beyond.

Additionally, several resilience-based methods introduced during the project have been localized and integrated into STAN’s and APY’s wider programs, benefiting training, events, and support initiatives beyond the Brave Space framework.

Finally, the project has contributed to a deeper understanding of the EU Eastern Partnership (EaP) among the partners. By focusing on resilience, sustainability, mental health, and youth engagement in peacebuilding, the initiative aligns with the EaP’s goal of building resilient, fair, and inclusive societies. The Ambassador for Eastern Partnership at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also been informed about the Brave Space platform and the research findings on youth in the region, further strengthening the project’s visibility and policy relevance.

Updates & Reports

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Peace begins within – The power of brave space

📄 View Brave Space Report (PDF)

Contact

📧 For more information or to get involved, contact us at: development@fryshuset.se
📲 Follow our journey on Instagram — click the names to visit the profiles:
@fryshusetglobal & @fryshusetyouthmobility