From 25th to 27th June 2013, ALDA organised three days of activities in Strasbourg on the topic “Youth and politics”, within the project MY EUROPE and in cooperation with the Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe (International Non Governmental Organisations).

MY EUROPE is a ‘Europe for Citizens’ project, led by the Local Councils’ Association of Malta and gathering 14 partners from Albania, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Macedonia, and Malta. It aims at empowering citizens to play a part in the democratic life, with specific reference to active participation in political life of disadvantaged target groups: women, youngsters and immigrants.

“Youth and Politics” was the second international event organised within the project. Its main objective was to give a chance to youngsters to express their needs and interests to local and European policy makers, and to fight against their exclusion from the participation to political life.

These three days of activities were the occasion to discuss youth opportunities and tools for active participation in the decision making process, to exchange good practices and to make recommendations to improve youth participation, which were presented during the plenary of the INGO Conference hold on 27th June.

The Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe welcomed the text of recommendations and agreed to continue to work with young people.

The next event within the project will be organised in November in Macedonia and will focus on women.

Organised by ALDA in close co-operation with CRT Foundation and the University of Turin, the conference ‘ Crisis and renaissance – Local Community Theatre Paving the Way towards European Active Citizenship’ held on 22 May in Brussels raised awareness about the social and community theatre as a powerful tool for local communities in response to ongoing economic and social crisis.
Impressive visual and narrative presentations of the artistic and theatrical experience in the settlements across Europe showed the community efforts aimed to tackle the crisis and renaissance issues.

In her introductory notes, Ms. Barbara Gessler, Head of Department of Culture in EACEA stated the high relevance of the Caravan project more as the conceptual approach to challenges at local community development level and the bottom-up approach so much needed to ensure a more effective public space for the dialogue of EU citizens with the EU institutions, while the Project Manager Carlo Lingua gave a brief overview of the activities and results achieved during the Caravan local events and the Caravan artists on the road tour connecting Turin, Seville and Holstebro that have taken place over the last twelve months.

Mr. John Macdonald, Head of the Task Force for EYC 2013 reiterated the need for strengthened institutionalised forms of consultation with citizens at the European level and the need for creating of a new narrative for the European Union in support to the future perspective of the social innovation and culture in its broadest sense, rather than only to the narrative of the internal market or economic crisis. Examples of grass-root initiatives for improved participation and consultation forms in policy / decision making promoted by the Local Democracy Agencies were presented by Ms. Imislawa Gorska, Vicepresident of ALDA. She also included the city of Bydgosc promoting a wide range of youth actions aimed to cultural and artistic regeneration of local public spaces. In his presentation, Mr. Ionut Sibian, member of EESC raised a number of concerns related with insufficient involvement of NGO-s and their networks in consultation process at EU level.

During the second thematic panel the keynote speakers were Luisa De Amicis, Executive Director of EUCLID network, Alessandra Rossi Ghiglione, Project Caravan Community Theatre Supervisor, and Alberto Pagliarino, Project Caravan Artistic Director. EUCLID network’s main priority to assist to NGO-s to establish and maintain the dialogue for creating legislative and institutional framework in support to social entrepreneurship as a tool for introducing social innovation in addressing the crisis that has major impact on the excluded or marginalised groups.
Alessandra Rossi Ghiglione and Alberto Pagliarino gave an overview of social and community theatre concept as well as the specific SCT methodology studied at the University Turin. They presented the theoretical and artistic perspective of the concept that started as an experimentation but evolved over the past years to an intrinsic community response to alienation and crisis.

Case studies of the community theatres in action and the origin of their conception were presented in the third panel by Rita Maria Fabris (University of Turin), Ms. Mase Moreno (TNT Theatre Seville) and mr. Georgie Zlatarev (Theatre Vazrajdane, Sofia).
The conference ended with a practical workshop of community theatre by Professor Alessandra Rossi Ghiglione, which allowed the participants to experience the power of this tool on themselves during several group exercises and games.

The final conference of the Civil Society in Action for Dialogue and Partnerships project, titled “Agreement as a basis of cooperation between civil society and the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, gathered around 80 participants, NGO and LA representatives from Bosnia and Herzegovina, neighbouring countries and EU Member States.

The conference was an opportunity to present the implemented activities, and make recommendations and plans for further cooperation. In the opening session of the first day speeches were given by Dženana Dedic, Delegate of LDA Mostar, Ljubo Beslic, Mayor of the City of Mostar, Marco Boaria, head of Project Development, ALDA.
All the partners involved in the action officially signed the Regional Memorandum of Co-operation as the grounds for their readiness for follow-up activities to promote democratic governance at local level, principles of accountability and responsive performances of public authorities in BiH, Croatia and Serbia.

Two thematic workshops were also organised, gathering both NGOs and public authorities: Co-operation Agreement – from legal framework to effective implementation, dedicated to local implementation of BH Memorandum of Co-operation, Effective Performances and Service Provision of Local Self –governments in Co-operation with CSO’s: Comparative Analysis and Practice in the EU and Western Balkan Countries, on best practice exchange.

The programme also included the organisation of the first ever NGO Fair held in Mostar on 10 May with some 30 local NGOs with stands displaying promotional publications, documentaries and materials, providing a great networking opportunity.