04/03/2015 Liberale Donato

ERASMUS+ KA3: Project “EuroMediterranean Youth Forum”

Futuro Digitale is partner of the Project

“EuroMediterranean Youth Forum”

Civil Society Cooperation

Number Identification: 2014-2-EL02-KA347-001879

Running dates:  ongoing

Website: Coming soon

Partners: E.G.T.C Amphictyony (Applicant, Greece); FuturoDigitale (Italy); Anetel (Cyprus); Local Government Association (Malta); Engelsiz Toplum Olusturma Dernegi (Turkey).

Project Summary

The project involves the following actions:

  • Building up a network of young people from various Mediterranean countries, various social and economic status etc, who will discuss and form the Euro-Mediterranean Youth Forum, with the aim of taking decisions and common action in respect to problems faced by the younger generation in the Mediterranean countries and, particularly, of mediating these views to decision makers in the EU.
  • Kick-off meeting where the representatives of the young people, along with the decision makers and one representative from each partner, will meet in Athens to decide upon the statutory form of the Forum, as well as to present their opinions to the decision-makers and establish lines of direct communication with them.
  • Creation of an e-platform for enabling open dialogue among young people; its design and programming will start right away, however its form and function will be finalized during the kick-off meeting.

In detail the immediate actions that have to be implemented are:

  1. Dissemination of information regarding the starting of the programme in municipalities and networks of young people (organizations, clubs etc). Press releases in English and Greek, dispatched by the leader; each partner will then have the responsibility to translate and further disseminate the press releases.
  2. Selection process for the candidate representatives. The general prerequisite is that the representatives are young people, aged 18-35, and we should make sure that they belong to the following groups: young elected members of the municipalities, young entrepreneurs and professionals, unemployed, students, young people with special needs.  According to our initial planning, there have to be 36 young representatives at the kick-off meeting, out of which 4 people with special needs, 4 people from groups with fewer opportunities, plus 4 people as escorts to the people of special needs, whose expenses are fully covered by the programme. Together with the partners’ representatives and the EU decision makers, the total number of participants at the kick-off meeting, whose expenses are covered, will be 60. Regarding their provenance we have 11 people from Italy, 8 people from Cyprus, 12 people from Turkey, 7 people from Malta, 3 people from Spain (mainly representatives of EGTCs and decision makers), 13 people from Athens and 6 from Belgium (mainly EU representatives and decision makers). Each partner will be responsible for gathering CVs from candidates and making a first selection of the young people to be dispatched to the kick-off meeting. We would also welcome suggestions as to who the decision makers invited will be (we were thinking or reps  from the European  Youth Forum and high commissioners but any other idea is helpful).
  3. Tentative timetable:
  • 3 months for finding and evaluating participants by the partners
  • 1 month for preparing questionnaires with the main issues that young people need to address. Representatives of each country will help in this direction.
  • 1 month for finalization of the questionnaires
  • 1,5 month for dispatching and collecting questionnaires
  • 2 months for questionnaire evaluation and preparation of the platform
  • 1 month for submitting the platform contents to the participants and the partners and collect feedback.
  • Kick-off meeting. Depending on the accomplishment of the preparatory activities and the prices for hotels, air travel etc, we would suggest that this takes place either in October/November 2015 (i.e. month 8 or 9 of the implementation of the project) or in March 2016 (i.e. month 12).
  • During the kick-off meeting the statutory form of the Forum will have to be finalized and voted for, the decision-makers will have to issue a memorandum of collaboration with the Forum and the contents of e-platform will have to be widely approved.
  • Within the following months after the kickoff meeting, the e-platform will have to start functioning and the representatives (supervised by the partners) will have to follow the dialogue developed through this instrument and make sure that the representatives are in direct dialogue with the decision-makers.
  • The platform will be in English and Greek; however, if the partners or the participants would be willing to undertake translation, either now or in the future, we can arrange for the platform to be functional in a multilingual environment.