5 days meeting in Iseo
Students and decision makers from Hargita County (Romania), Hévíz (Hungary), Iseo (Italy), Kanjiža (Serbia), and Lendava (Slovenia) met in Iseo to boost the dialogue between young people and decision-makers.
“Local products and cutting the food chain” was one of the focus topics in the transnational meeting. For that reason, the Municipality of Iseo involved some local producers and factories, which could demonstrate their importance in the local economy and the good practices applied: Nadia Turelli from Coldiretti and Anna Patrizia Ucci represented Slow Food. Participants had the opportunity to get familiar with the situation of local enterprises through the experience of the olive oil producers of Monte Isola, through La Rete, the net factory, thanks to Cascina Clarabella, the social enterprise related to agri-tourism, olive oil mill, winery and fish processing centre. Wood Beton, a company working with wooden houses and structures showed that a small town can also give home for an innovative company, for a big investment.
The transnational meeting also aimed at formulating a common Youth Strategy which can be a good start for each partner town and then they can adapt it to their local needs. Thanks to the cooperation with the Municipality of Hévíz, Ms Zsuzsa Radnai facilitated the professional workshops. In order to get to know each other better and build a safe and creative atmosphere, participants were involved in team building activities. Then they could get insight into the situation of young people in Iseo through a quiz and making a SWOT analysis on Iseo by brainstorming and asking questions from local young people.
To form a common youth strategy, first, participants dealt with youth policy in general, what do we need to take into account for youth policy to work well? They analysed a local and an international youth strategy to meet examples even if they are good or bad. Then they learned the steps needed for building a youth policy strategy. During the workshops they used several non-formal educational methods. Based on hours of brainstorming they developed a common Youth Strategy with lots of concrete ideas.
Participants had the opportunity to not only attend the Global meeting network of the European Lakes but they could present the project and its results so far to the decision-makers and present the work they had been done during the week, with special regard to the Youth Strategy created together. After the Global Meeting participants were looking for answers to the question: what can the partner towns do with the created Youth Strategy? How can they develop further and then implement it? To close the transnational meeting participants evaluated the days spent together and gave feedback to each other and to the organizers.