European Network

Young Scot believes that young people should be able to live, work and play in other parts of the world and we have developed partnerships with key like-minded European organisations to help make this easy for young people. 

Young Scot is a founder member of the European Youth Card Association (EYCA), comprised of 41 member organisations providing youth cards across 38 European countries. The inclusion of the EYCA logo on the Young Scot National Entitlement Card (NEC) enables cardholders to access reciprocal discounts in all 38 member countries.

Young Scot regularly provides advice and support to other European countries seeking to develop youth cards. In March 2011 Young Scot hosted a three-day seminar in Edinburgh, attended by 15 EYCA member countries.  The aim of the seminar was to provide a platform to showcase good practice on how youth cards could be used as a tool to engage young people in policy making through a co-ordinated approach involving youth cards, youth information and social technology. 

In June 2011 Young Scot was presented with the Golden Hercules Award for the Best Youth Card in Europe.

Youth Scot is the EuroDesk partner for Scotland. This means we facilitate information requests from young people across Europe. The partnership is designed to help inspire a sense of active citizenship, and solidarity among Europeans. 

The British Council operate Eurodesk UK which aims to encourage 13 - 30 year olds to take advantage of European opportunities available to them and encourage European mobility.  A key part of this is providing youth workers and young people with information on European opportunities and funding around the key themes of work, travel, study and volunteering.  Young Scot is a regional partner of Eurodesk and handles all information enquiries from young people in Scotland through our freephone InfoLine service and by email.

Young Scot is also a member of the European Youth Information and Counselling Agency (ERYICA) which is an international non-profit association based in Luxembourg.  There are 26 members, 5 affiliated and 4 co-operating organisations in the ERYICA network, working in 31 countries, providing reliable information under the principles of the European Youth Information Charter. 

Young Scot is the Scottish representative and we continue to participate in ERYICA projects which assist us to actively develop reliable and accessible information for young people. Our membership to the ERYICA also enables us to train our Information Officers and share ideas and methods of information sharing with all 24 members at regular meetings. 

For more information on our European Services, please contact our Entitlements and Rewards Director, David McNeill on davidm@youngscot.org.