DAY 1

Participant arrivals.
A traditional Slavic welcome.
Who is who?
Uverture to our common journey or... getting to know eachother.

L'ARCOBALENO, the Rainbow Crossing from Italy

L’Arcobaleno is a social service cooperative which works with young people and adults since 1984.

The main sector and organization background is health education. Since 1987 Arcobaleno has been running a community for people with addiction problems (drug, alcohol), who are hosted to be followed by a team of experts to get over their addiction. The community has been hosted more than 400 people coming from the region.

The second sector, called “Route_ag”, deals with education&training for adults and youth, and youth policies. The main objective is the active involvement of people in non formal education paths. Route_ag promotes: the management and coordination of counselling centres; juvenile aggregation centres; meetings; trainings and workshops.

The main activities are:

- promotion of youth policies and cultures,

- social inclusion,

- street education,

- health education,

- expression through art,

- media and communication,

- intercultural learning,

- experiential learning,

- international mobility.

Target Groups:

- Young people from 15 to 30,

- Adults: parents, teachers, social workers, services workers.

Presenting H2O from Portugal

Arrouquelas is a small village in the centre of Portugal, in the district of Rio Maior which is known by its sports achievements. Our county is well known for its wines and gastronomic specialties, mainly made of pork meat. There are many people who work in agriculture and whose jobs are very precarious. Agriculture and breeding cattle are very important activities in the economy of our region, Ribatejo. Voluntarism, based on solidarity, friendship, compassion, citizenship has been fighting back the tendency of our societies which promote material values and breed selfish people whose main worries are to buy the next newly arrived good in the market. Therefore, associations like ours are a very important factor in the social development, as in some cases the only development opportunity.

We're an association whose typical name is “H2O”, was founded in 1996 and nowadays has 100 members. We carry out several kinds of activities, which mainly promote environmental awareness. Our work has been acknowledged both by regional and national entities. Voluntarisme and concentration characterise our work, which aims at educating people and thus becomes considerably relevant in the communities development. Gradually, we have managed to orientate the people in a region that despite being close to Lisbon has serious social and financial needs, like a rural area that we are.

Generally speaking, our association aims to show that the habitants of the rural areas can and should have the same opportunities that those in the urban areas have. Therefore we try to offer them activities that they can only carry out in the countryside, in which we try to match the countryside’s' best assets — the environment and nature— with the conditions they find in the cities. We carry out Non-formal Education, we organise debates on various themes, all aiming the protection of the environment; we promote awareness campaigns in which we conceive posters and fliers.

We are involved in National and International projects connected with European Citizenship, organise exchanges, seminars and training courses as sending and hosting organization. Our association has got its own facilities, which was built by our members. Despite some difficulties, we try to keep track of the new technologies, through our cyber space, which allows access to the Internet.

They have been arround...

Magyar Zanemuveszeti Alapitvany Stationed in Hungary

An organization from Budapest, Hungary, supporting young artists, musicians. Their target group is unestablished talents, creating in 'less popular' music branches.

As all the musicians are not at the same time managers, economists or media people, this organization is offering support at organizing events/concerts, media publishing etc.

European Youth Press

The European Youth Press is an umbrella association of young journalists in Europe. It involves more than 48,000 journalists who are less than 30 years of age. The association consists of twenty member organizations, of which eighteen are national youth media associations. For everyday work EYP elects a board, that serves two years, which works together closely with the associations’ European secretariat.

The European Youth Press is a young association, not only because it was founded in 2004, but because the participants are young themselves. Journalists who are organized in the European Youth Press are working for either school magazines, internet projects, radio and video productions, or are interns in editor-rooms, freelance journalists, journalism students or trainees.

The European Youth Press’ primary objective is to ensure strong cooperation among national youth media structures through group projects. Moreover, the Press’ overall aim is to strengthen the role of youth media and promote freedom of press in Europe. The European Youth Press also takes part in discussions about journalistic education standards and media policies throughout the European Union. The EYP sees itself as serving the national structures through the development and coordination of projects that are organized by young media makers in Europe. The EYP also provides contact forums and educational seminars for multipliers of the member associations and provides internal and external communication among all partners.

Young people write for young people – and give topics a youth perspective; a perspective which is sometimes overlooked when examining European issues. At the European Youth Press, we want to contribute to the intercultural exchange in Europe by facilitating direct contacts between young journalists through international projects and events.

Equal People Squad from Belgium...

...is a trainers collective designing and delivering trainings mainly for non-profit organisations started by Steven Haine.

Contact: stevenhaine@equalpeoplesquad.com

Greek Activators, ACRO NGO

Active Creative Reforming Organization from Greece :)

Non governamental organisation established in 2007 in Kastoria and already organised/participated in training courses, seminars, youth exchanges and the European Youth Week 2008.

Check this link for the news on INFOLIBRARY.