YouthBank is a model of youth work that has been coordinated by the Community Volunteers Foundation and hosted by local institutions since 2011.

A part of the YouthBank Network and supported by C.S Mott Foundation, the project is a youth grant program that supports the youth’s empowerment, participation in social life, and personal development, by offering them opportunities to make positive contributions to their communities.

Institutions such as local youth NGOs, youth centers, the youth work units of municipalities and district governorships become local partners to the project.

With YouthBank, all young people between the ages of 15 and 25 formulate ideas for the problems or needs that they observe in their locality and implement these ideas with the support of their peers.

In each locality, a group of young people who come together around the local institutional partners implement this grant program. The executive team carries out activities for the distribution of the grant they hold, and supports with small grants the project ideas of their peers in the areas of social responsibility, youth and education.

The executive team mobilizes their peers through activities such as formulating social responsibility projects, enabling them to establish relations with local governments, honing their social skills, and offering consultancy and peer training schemes during the project implementation stages.

Young people are empowered in the areas of active participation and citizenship, and are encouraged to develop solution-oriented approaches by engaging in social initiatives for the problems they see around them. They also develop important skills for future employment opportunities, such as budget management, project management, resource development, and adopt constructive attitudes for eliminating prejudices with the other young people they encounter, and coexisting in harmony.

What happened in the period 2017/2018

The Youth Bank Program, between May 2017 and April 2018, carried out a total of 80 youth grant programs in support of 30 peer projects hosted by 9 local initiatives. While 240 young individuals received grants to implement their project ideas, 4,342 people benefited directly from these projects. These local projects covered a wide range of themes such as children’s rights, disabled individuals’ rights, women's rights, the environment, recycling, school renovation, thematic training programs, arts and the youth.

The number of projects conducted in the 3 categories is as follows:

• Youth Projects: 6

• Social Responsibility Projects: 22

• Youth Training Programs: 2

YouthBank Philanthropy Networks

YouthBank Philanthropy Networks are designed to allow companies, institutions, local governments and individual donors active in 9 different locations, where the YouthBank program is implemented, to come together to ensure the financial sustainability of the project and become the biggest supporter of young YouthBank volunteers.

In the first 6 months of 2018, running campaigns, theater and concert events, donations obtained through mass funding platforms as well as donations from companies, institutions and local governments helped fund 48 project ideas by young people.

The first supporters of YouthBank Philanthropy Networks were C.S. Mott Foundation and Başak Demir Ticaret.

You can follow the activities of the YouthBank Program on www.gencbank.org and its social media accounts.