Increasing youth engagement in regional development and cross-border cooperation
The Cross-border project Generation 2020 was implemented between September 2015 and December 2017.
The project aimed at mobilizing and developing young people and provided support for their creative volunteering projects. Generation 2020 strengthened young people’s engagement in local and regional development and promoted youth cross-border cooperation with Ukraine.
The project targeted young people from the Zakarpattya region of Ukraine and from Eastern Slovakia – in particular secondary schools and university students and young unemployed adults aged 15 – 30. Adult project participants – teachers, artists and creative industry professionals were the secondary target group of the project.
The main goal of the project was to form a cross-border group of young activists – Carpathian Regional Youth Council (GenWe) to serve as the project vision bearer in the future. The project created an innovative platform for young people interested in public matters, decision-making processes and their own development. This was made possible thanks to the transfer of experience from the Norwegian project partner, Barents Youth Council.
The project was financed from Norway Funds and from the state budget of the Slovak Republic within the scope of the SK08 CBC Programme.
Project Activities
- Opening Conference aiming to promote creativity in practical life and indicate how it can help to develop a city or a region was held on 24 November 2015.
- Informal meeting, Slovak – Ukrainian youth meeting “Think Globally, Act Across the Borders” (25 – 28 August 2016) was held in Spišská Sobota and attended by 17 young active people from the Košice and Prešov self-governing regions and from Zakarpattya (10 Slovak and 7 Ukrainian participants). The aim of the meeting was to prepare a draft of the system of functioning and securing funding for the cross-border youth organisation GenWe.
- Košice and Uzhgorod Creative Days were held in order to identify local and regional needs which can only be addressed in cooperation with local or regional institutions. These networking events were organized to establish contacts and partnerships among stakeholders. Creative Days led to Creative Tasks – creative projects for young project participants who used them to address real issues concerning their local self-government, schools, public institutions, etc. more information about the event and tasks can be found here.
- Case Study in the Granary (Jablonov nad Turňou) – the closing meeting of creative teams took place on 28 – 29 October 2016.
- Training activities and soft skills trainings for young people to help them implement their creative projects successfully.
- Slovak-Ukrainian Artist in Residence Programme
- Closing Conference entitled “Transforming Borders into Opportunities” was held on 9 February 2017 in the Barvinok municipality in the Uzhgorod region. The aim of the conference was to present creative projects’ outcomes, evaluate their implementation and outline their future. Conference participants included young people, experts, non-profit organizations, local self-governments, representatives of regional state administration as well as members of the public. It was also the first opportunity for the international youth group GenWe to present their activities over the Eastern border. Take a look at the conference as seen by one of the GenWe members here.
Project Partners
