Month: January 2022

The call for applications to become the European Youth Capital (EYC) for 2025 has just been opened. This is already the 17^th time that this title will be awarded: The first European Youth Capital was Rotterdam in 2009, while for 2024 this distinction will go to Ghent.

What is the European Youth Capital (EYC)?

The European Youth Capital (EYC) is a title awarded by the European Youth Forum and is designed to empower young people, boost youth participation and strengthen European identity. Young people should have equal opportunities to shape social, economic, and political life wherever they live.

They bring new and innovative ideas to refresh local democracy which is to the advantage of all residents of the city. This project helps young people and cities to work closely together and sets an example for other European municipalities to follow.

Who can apply?

The European Youth Capital (EYC) competition is open to any local authority from the Member States of the Council of Europe, which are parties to the European Cultural Convention. You can apply here.

The deadline for applications is 21 February 2022.

For more information, please visit the European Youth Forum’s website.

As for last year, ALDA is willing to spread this great opportunity, inviting everyone to join the call!

The partners of the ERASMUS project SMELT – Skilling Marginalised people to enter the Labour markeT – are now working on their first project’s output, namely the delivering of a workshops on social and entrepreneurial skills to enter the labour market. The training is targeting vulnerable people, unemployed and those that are struggling in finding a job. What competences are participants going to acquire?

• Writing CV;
• Attending a job interview and
• Learning how to find a job

Furthermore, from a general perspective the module will develop participants’ knowledge on their rights as workers; while, on a more specific level, the course will provide insights on different types of contracts existing in Spain, as well as on the European and Spanish labour market. Thus, SMELT partner “Asociacion Mar Violeta”, based in Spain- Gijon, will launch the training course on the 8^th of February.

At the end of the course an easy handbook will be designed together with participants, with the purpose of creating a user-friendly manual synthetizing the content of the training and accessible to everyone.

Useful information:

• the training will be organized in 4 days, from 8^th to 11^th of February, from 10AM to 2PM and delivered by experts of the “Association Mar Violeta“
• online training
• language course: Spanish
• contacts: asocmarvioleta@gmail.com
• at the end of the course a certificate of attendance will be issued

Project partners are looking for participants, who feel they need to improve their competences within the working sector. Do not hesitate to join: the social and entrepreneurial workshop is ready to help you!

***
Check the dedicate page of SMELT project

ALDA podcast: the new and fresh initiative directly from our Communication Department!

The Association, as well as its network and friends, is engaged in concrete and tangible actions. Willing to promote positive change and democracy, through dialogue and interaction, ALDA has launched this new multimedia project: Shades of Democracy, the ALDA podcast! 

Why a podcast? Because we don’t need to grab a heavy book to learn about democracy and democratic practices.With this new podcast series, we want to get closer to people, in a more informal way, turning what may seem as an abstract topic, into a daily exercise.

What do we mean by “Democracy”? When can we talk about citizen engagement and participatory process? Through our podcast “Shades of Democracy” we give explanations, examples and hopefully inspiration, with the objective of stimulating your curiosity and stimulating dialogue and interaction.

Curious to know more about, citizens engagement, crowdfunding, culture and youth participation? We are going to discuss all of this and more on “Shades of Democracy”, but this is just the beginning. Much is going now, and new interviews and chats are already scheduled.

Every month a brand new episode right in your headphones, to understand what local democracy looks like in our everyday lives. 

What are you waiting for? Find it the main podcast platforms:

Spotify
Google Podcast
Spreaker
Deezer

ALDA – The European Association for Local Democracy, is proud to be recognised by the European Commission as one of the 59 most active organisations that work to protect and promote Union values.

Indeed, ALDA has been recognised in the Framework Partnership Agreement of the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) of the European Union for the period 2022-2025.

Such framework partnership is of great importance for ALDA, being both a confirmation of the effectiveness of ALDA’s work in supporting good governance and citizen participation in Europe; as well as evidence of the confidence that the European Commission has in ALDA as a strategic partner in the implementation of the new EU priorities for the next 4 years.

More in depth, the agreement consists in a long-term cooperation between the Commission and the selected partners with the aim to contribute to the objectives of the Union policy in the following areas:

• promoting and protecting Union values;
• promoting equality, preventing and combating discrimination;
• promoting gender equality;
• combating racism, xenophobia and all forms of intolerance;
• protecting and promoting the rights of the child;
• promoting European remembrance;
• promoting citizen engagement;
• preventing and combating gender-based violence;
• preventing and combating violence against children.

Visit the dedicated web page of the European Commission to learn more and click HERE to have a glance of ALDA’s main activities for the 4-year period, titled “Local democracy: shaping the future together”

The AVATAR project – Alto Vicentino Territorial Alliance for Networked Actions, which aims to spread digital literacy in a territory involving some 155,000 inhabitants, has concluded its third semester. During these months, the focus of activities has been on digital literacy to promote the use of public services such as SPID and PA portals, but also to show useful tools in everyday life.

In addition to numerous citizens, the growing participation saw the involvement of PA operators, freelancers and Third Sector organisations. For the latter, important digital tools and strategies were presented, such as:
– crowdfunding
– digital communication and
– cloud systems to manage their activities.

Thanks to numerous collaborations and the enlargement of the community of interest, AVATAR is constantly enriched with new contents such as the “App Wednesdays” that present useful applications for smartphones to citizens, or the cycle of webinars on digital hot topics such as fake news, infodemics, media literacy.

The year 2022 has already begun full of new collaborations to continue the digital learning process thanks to volunteers who will guide and assist citizens, to future sessions dedicated to change management to meet the challenges posed by digitalisation and with a full calendar of seminars, courses, webinars, meetings to transfer skills and accompany citizens, PA, schools and third sector in the digital transition already underway.

AVATAR is also a fortnightly newsletter full of reflections, events and opportunities to keep up with digitalisation: subscribe_newsletter

Two more Capacity Building Workshops (CBW) to go before the Final Conference of BRIGHT project!

As the one taking place in mid November in Calabria, a southern region of Italy, Spain and Greece will host the fourth and fifth CBWs respectively. 

What is the idea behind these interactive meetings? From a general perspective, BRIGHT Capacity Building Workshops, five in total, are intended to enhance the capability of local institutions, as well as European countries, to rely on participatory governance systems – be they Collaboration Agreements – as far as enabling mobile women in decision-making processes.  

As for the previous occasion, also these two CBS will see the participation of several stakeholders, discussing the broad topic of “mobile women’ inclusion” employed in the sector of agriculture in other similar areas of 3rd sectors (as cleaning and care services) sectors on how to address the need for new and innovative strategies to guarantee access to fair, adequate, and sensitive public services. The way to reach underrepresented groups is a joint effort of authorities, social services, trade unions, citizens, and employers in order to design innovative and inclusive welfare solutions.

Based on this, the BRIGHT project, not only is willing to overcome this gap, but also it has set 5 CBWs to produce and design concrete outputs to be shared at European level. Within this framework project’s partners will join the workshops, and invite people to join:

• Spain: January 31st – February 1st → Register here
• Greece: February 7th-8th → Register here

Last but not least, follow the project on social media, and do not miss the final conference, which will take place in Brussels on February 22nd-23rd (dates TBC).

🟡  Upcoming next: the Holistic Online Facilitation training 🟡

This new learning experience shows you how to create interactive online workshops and to avoid online fatigue; while finding out new tools helping you to facilitate online events in a holistic and interactive way. The training will take place online on 10, 15, 17, 22 & 24 February 3-5pm CET, and it will be in English. Special price for ALDA Members: only 150€ instead of 190€.

2021 was a year filled with activities for the Climate of Change project, despite many challenges arising from the Covid 19 pandemic!

After the first year of implementation, 2021 marked the launch, in all 13 countries of the project, of the debate contest: an educational activity that included – among others – familiarizing with climate change and migration related issues; developing analyses skills and the ability to synthesize data and information to take position and be critical.

More in depth, coordinated by ALDA in partnership with FINEP, participants, divided into two groups (students from high school and from universities) joined a training module session and the drafting of debate papers for all partners. ALDA implemented the activity in both France and Belgium. At the end, the national winning teams in each age group met in Brussels in November to dispute the Pan-European Debate Finals with the other national teams (see our previous article).

Furthermore, last November, ALDA in cooperation with the European Environmental Bureau welcomed the circus show MadgaClan in Brussels for the final dates of the Pan-European Street Action Tour. The tour was scheduled during the EU debate finals to allow students to participate in the activity.

Additionally, ALDA participated in the drafting of the campaign guide #ClimateOfChange. The output has been published on the website and used by all partners to promote the campaign at national level, while producing surveys and factsheets. Overall, the objective is to highlight the connection among migration, climate and the need to transform our economy and everyday lives. The campaign will last until the end of the project in 2023.

Finally, “End Climate Change, Start a Climate of Change” petition was launched, demanding policy changes that will safeguard a healthy and sustainable tomorrow. (Sign the petition!).

What will happen next year?

In 2022, the lead partner WeWorld will develop a 4-episode webseries on the topic of climate justice, aimed at promoting the campaign through online platform and across Europe.

In addition, this year focuses on research work to support an evidence-based narrative on the nexus between migration and climate. Specifically, it is intended to produce 4 case studies in Cambodia, Guatemala, Senegal and Kenya and to give voice to local communities most affected by climate change.

Meanwhile, some national and international events will enable the partners to introduce the public to the outputs and outcomes of the project, especially the results of case-studies and advocacy actions while promoting the petition.

The research paper, aimed at analyzing the needs of communities and community workers in Europe, has been released by the PIECE project’s partners

The research is based on a survey spread out by every partner through their networks (see our previous article); as well as on 25 in-depth interviews. This last analysis brought something new compared to others: the international and cross-sectorial elements.

With this report, the partners tried to understand what are the current needs of community workers to improve their work and enhance the local community participation. Hence, this output highlights both common and different needs amongst European countries and regions, such as:

• learning practical and educational tools to apply to their work;
• gaining soft skills and ability to engage further their communities;
• dealing with important issues (gender, racism, sustainability, etc.), or
• knowing how to create a safe online community space.

Moreover, this theoretical work is a key step within the project. Furthermore, it will be the foundation for the next stages, mainly by raising some difficulties that would be addressed through the creation of training materials and an e-learning platform for the target group.

Finally, the overall objective of PIECE project is to up-skill and empower community workers. This will consequently allow beneficiaries to enhance social inclusion, skills and employability of the people they will train or involve in their activities.

The report can be used by everyone out of the project; it is freely available on the outputs page of the project’s website : https://pieceproject.eu/

If you want to find out more, have a look at the Facebook page.