International Youth Meeting

LiberaMente is going to host an international youth meeting gathering young people from peculiar regions with the aim of empowering Youth-Led Development (YLD). For this event, participants coming from peculiar realities will meet in Bolzano/Bozen for a diverse program designed to strenghten the devotion of youth towards developing an effective strategy of YLD and creating a network for future exchange and cooperation. The Meeting will be held from the 27th till the 30th of October 2011 in Bolzano/Bozen. The activities will mainly take place at the EURAC, the Free University of Bolzano and the Youth Center "Pippo FoodChillStage" and "Vintola 18". During the meeting we would like to discuss YLD under many aspects: We are going to exchange our views on, to show successful examples of and to find common perspectives on YLD. The goals of this meeting are exchanging experiences and best practices on YLD, encouraging the use of web and technological advancements and creating a network of organisations, public bodies and groups from distinguishing realities promoting YLD. At the end of the meeting we will summarize the discussions carried developing a policy statement: This declaration will be the main outcome of the meeting, suggest a set of core values and ideas on YLD and give an instruction of how to realize it.

Partners

This international youth meeting will host several youth organizations and associations from all around Europe and the world:

Youth NGO "Iskra" (Ucraine)

Federación de Xuventude de Galicia (Spain)Save Youth Future Society (Gaza)

Moldovan National Youth Council (Moldova)

Mafun – Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples (Russia)

Tavolo Trentino con il Kossovo (Kossovo)

Europe Direct Trentino (Trentino)

Vlach Youth Council (Macedonia)

AEGEE Tarragona (Spain)

Programme

Components

Opening sessions After the arrival of the participants it will be held an opening ceremony with the welcome of the hosts, organizers, promoters and the local councillor. The next morning before the start of the workshops the participants will have the chance to get to know each other better and prepare themselves the work.
Presentation & Working Groups The working sessions will start with an presentations of the groups, starting from LiberaMente, the host of the meeting. After this presentation, it is going to be the turn of the guest partners presenting themselves, their regions and especially their „best practices": Examples of projects organized and carried out by young people. The all the participants will be divided into different working groups who deepen separately their experiences in the field.
Workshops. In this sessions the participants developing their ideas according to different themes of youth-led development, working through specific discussion tecniques. They will be divided in different working groups. Each group is attended to by a facilitator who monitors and directs the activities.
Declaration document process The outcomes of the group work will be gathered together in one policy document. This declaration designed to be used as a starting point for the implementation of the statement for each participant country. The policy statement process will end with the official presentation of the document.
Public Debate This moment of the meeting will be open for the public and should represent an occasion of debate and dialogue with the citizenship. The topic of the evening will be "Discussing Youth-led development: How young people can bring the change" We´d like to discuss this topic focusing on the fundamental role of the web and social media in rethinking civil society and politics.
Cultural events. The programme of the meeting will also include free-time activities (like sightseeing) and a concert on the final evening of the meeting with bands and acts from the region

Location

All the participants will be accomodated in the Youth Hostel of Bolzano, near to the center of the town and just three minutes of walk from the railway station.

During the meeting the participants will move around different locations. The activities are planned to be on several spots of different kind:

- EURAC

- Free University of Bolzano

- Pippo FoodChillStage (Youth Center)

- Vintola 18 (Youth Center)