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Estonian National Youth Council (ENL) is an umbrella organization established in 2002 and unites 53 youth organisations throughout Estonia.
ENL promotes cooperation between youth associations and active participation of young people in society.
ENL is working for recognition and participation of young people.

Legal form
Platform – collective of organisations
Objectives

– ENL promotes cooperation between youth associations and active participation of young people in society.
– ENL is working for recognition and participation of young people and in order to create a better working environment for youth organisations.

Main Activities

– Estonian National Youth Council (ENL) organizes projects and campaigns in order to develop areas that concern youth and are important to them.
– Participation Project and Participation Metro give interactive, simple and fun overview what is participation, why it’s important to participate, how to participate and how to teach participation (ENL has created simulation game and materials for teaching participation and citizen activity).
– Shadow Elections is a citizen education project that gave in 2009 before the elections the possibility to elect also for those young people, who are not in voting age yet. In the capital Tallinn and second largest city Tartu from 5th till 8th of October ENL organized Shadow Elections, which gave the possibility to vote from age 14. The lists of canditates were real, the voting boxes were real and the program that analyzed the votes and put together the list of city councils was also the very same used in local elections during real elections. Only difference was that youth simulated, but the voice of youth was real and statistics and results were published to the media. The aim of the project was to motivate young people to grow interest in social matters and politics in general and to become an active citizen who wants to participate and has the ability to decide according to analysis, facts and information, not by advertisement or nice photograph. The elections participation was very high and ENL plans to continue with shadow electing also in year 2011 saw parliament elections, 2013 local elections and ENL will be part of the League of Young Voters project in 2014.
– The Quality Evaluation of Youth Organizations – ENL works for better and srtonger youth organizations and has created a self evaluation handbook for youth organization. The book contains easier and more complicated methods which help the youth activists to evaluate the progress of their own organization and develop it to the better.
– Youth mainstreaming, Youth politics and legislation – ENL works regularly with researches, legislations and ministries and strives for better youth policy. ENL participates in working groups, round tables and other organs as an expert in youth field.

Strengths

– ENL has a strong membership base and a professional staff that is able to efficiently work with a large array of partners in and out of Estonia.
– We are visible and able to collect youth opinions or relay messages to the target group.
– ENL is involved in Estonian youth policy development.