Month: June 2023

Salut tout le monde – Ciao a tutte e a tutti ! I am Antonella, I am Italian, and I have been volunteering as an IVY Reporter at the Managing Authority of the Interreg Program France Italy ALCOTRA in Lyon. ALCOTRA stands for Alpes Latines COopération TRAnsfrontalière/ Alpi Latine COoperazione TRAnsfrontaliera (Latin Alps Cross-border Cooperation). As suggested by the name, ALCOTRA is a cross-border program financed by the European Union aiming to strengthen cohesion in the Alpine area between France and Italy.  The French and Italian regions and counties involved in the Program are the following: Haute-Savoie, Savoie, Hautes-Alpes, Alpes de Haute-Provence, Alpes-Maritimes, Valle d’Aosta, Torino, Cuneo, and Imperia. During the current 2021-2027 programming, ALCOTRA will be funding several projects in line with the European’s Union five major challenges: innovation and research; environment; social inclusion; territorial approach; overcoming cross-border barriers. The ALCOTRA Managing Authority is the French Region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes which oversees the implementation of the Program. The managing authority is supported by the Joint Secretariat, based in Turin, which ensures the instruction and the follow-up of the projects. The Monitoring Committee, made up of each partner involved in the Program, is the decision-making body. In July 2022, the ALCOTRA Youth Council was launched with an advisory role. It is the first Youth Council in a European cross-border program aiming to give young people a voice on cross-border issues. As an IVY volunteer, my mission is to support the communication strategy of the Program as well as the ALCOTRA Youth Council activities. My tasks include writing articles for the ALCOTRA website and posts for social networks. In May, during the Month of Europe, I contributed to promoting European values and ALCOTRA territorial missions at several events. I helped with the organization of the webinar on the renewal of the ALCOTRA Youth Council, as well as a webinar on the application of horizontal principles in projects funded by ALCOTRA. One of the best moments of my volunteering experience has been my participation at the event Transnational Citizen Dialogue, organized by Europe Direct in Lyon. The aim of the meeting was to highlight the crucial role of European projects on our territories in making European values alive. In this sense, Interreg ALCOTRA is a concrete example of a successful territorial cooperation program between two European countries aiming to develop common solutions to diversified transnational challenges. And I am honestly grateful to be a part of it!     – Antonella, IVY Reporter for the Managing Authority Interreg France-Italy ALCOTRA Discover more about the Interreg proramme ALCOTRA Click Here

Hello everyone! My name is Irini and I am an IVY Volunteer at the SEACAP 4 SDG Project from the ENI CBC Med Programme at the University of Patras. It’s been an exciting month since I started as an IVY Project Partner and I am eager to share my experiences. The host organization team welcomed me warmly and informed me in every detail about the project I was going to participate in. SEACAP 4 SDG aims to address climate change adaptation and mitigation challenges in territories surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Specifically, the project focuses on implementing energy efficiency and renewable energy measures in public buildings in France, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Spain and Tunisia. The main goal of SEACAP 4 SDG is to develop a unified strategy and evaluation framework that capitalizes on the results of reference projects, integrating Sustainable Energy Access and Climate Action Plans (SE(A)CAP) within a common vision.  The project aims to establish uniform and adapted assessment methods and financing approaches to support sustainable development goals in the context of a smart society. In this way SEACAP 4 SDG will largely benefit public administration agents, energy agencies, actors in the building and construction sector and general public. As an IVY Project Partner in SEACAP 4 SDG, there are several roles and activities Ι engage in. I actively participate in collaborative workshops, and discussions, working alongside other project partners to define goals, strategies, and action plans. Also, I contribute my  knowledge in areas related to energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate change adaptation, and sustainable development to find innovative solutions that can benefit the project. Additionally, I assist in the implementation of project activities assigned to the organization, which includes conducting research, collecting data and developing guidelines or frameworks. Moreover, I actively participate in efforts to raise awareness about the importance of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and sustainable development. To sum up being an IVY volunteer is an experience that I will remember throughout my life. Even though, it has been only a month that I am involved in this project, I have had the privilege of connecting with individuals from diverse countries and acquiring knowledge that will be a catalyst for my professional growth and development. – Irini, IVY Project Partner for the ENI CBC MED project “SEACAP 4 SDG” at the University of Patras. Discover more about the ENI CBC MED project “SEACAP 4 SDG” Click Here Discover more about our host organisation University of Patras Click Here

The main goal of AYCH (Atlantic Creative Youth Hubs) is to improve the cooperation between the Atlantic territories of Europe through the promotion of the youth entrepreneurship. The project is led by five countries (United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Portugal, and Spain) and it aims to exchange ideas and create new synergies that will help build the future of Europe. Us, the young people, are the main actors of this program, and it is up to us to make a difference and a real impact on our future. So far, we have organized different events online and in presence, that basically consist in Hackathons. These competitions provide us with the opportunity to enhance our team-working and intercultural skills, as well as to meet people from other countries and from different backgrounds. In fact, last May we had our biggest meeting in L’ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique, where people from up to 20 nationalities worked in teams for three days, to recreate our urban spaces in a sustainable and healthy way.  As for my specific role in the project, I mainly help the Chamber of Commerce of Santiago de Compostela with the organization of the events. I also participate in the encounters as a mentor of the teams, in which my creative and innovative side is challenged. After the events, we make a summary of all the prototypes created by the participants and we offer them the chance to incubate them and make them real, which I believe is a crucial step. If we talk about what I like the most, that will be the creativity involving the process; the interesting ideas that can be created in such a short time just by gathering skills and perspective from such diverse people. This proves that together, different as we are, we can create the future of Europe together.  – Sara, IVY Project Partner for the Interreg Atlantic Area project “AYCH” at the Chamber of Commerce of Santiago de Compostela. Discover more about the Interreg project AYCH Click Here Discover more about our host organisation Chamber of Commerce of Santiago de Compostela Click Here

¡Hola a tod@s! My name is Amina, I come from Italy and I’ve been doing my IVY Volunteering experience for a month and a half now. I am currently volunteering with Vida Láctea in Lugo, Galicia as part of the AYCH communication team.  You may ask: what is AYCH? AYCH stands for Atlantic Youth Creative Hubs and it’s an Interreg project developed by an international partnership between 5 countries (Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland and the UK) in the European Atlantic area.  Its main goal is to promote entrepreneurship  and youth employment, and to develop new approaches and interventions in support services for young people across the Atlantic space in the creative sector, connecting people, ideas, skills, technologies and companies in a network of hubs, in order to unlock the creative potential of young entrepreneurs. By hosting events such as Hackathons and Creative Jams, AYCH wants to create awareness around specific matters that affect the youth of these areas and to try and solve them through prototyping in international groups. During these events the participants are split into groups of 4 – 6 people and are assigned firstly a topic to work on, and secondly, a mentor to help them coordinate. The groups are given two or three days (depending on the length of the event) to prototype their ideas and prepare for the final presentation. This will happen on the last day in front of a jury that will then elect the winning team(s) and then give them prizes. The programme is aimed at young motivated people from the European Atlantic area that want to discover new ways of thinking, create ideas and collaborate in a transnational environment. Every partner finds a group of young participants, mentors and experts that will take part in the event. For every event there’s a hosting partner, while the others tend to take care of the communication and the promotion of the event. As part of AYCH’s communication team I take care of the promotion of the project. More specifically, I am responsible for social media posts and video editing before and after every event. I am truly surprised by how much I like my tasks here. Before coming here I had just a little experience in promoting events, so I got here without much expectations. Every single day I learn new things in the communication field and I am really motivated to remain in this particular sector after my experience. I also love my new “work family”, I love spending time with my colleagues during and after working hours, I can genuinely say that they represent my favourite part of this volunteering! /*! elementor-pro – v3.7.1 – 16-05-2022 */ .elementor-gallery__container{min-height:1px}.elementor-gallery-item{position:relative;overflow:hidden;display:block;text-decoration:none;border:solid var(–image-border-width) 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Hello everyone, My name is Francesco, I’m 26, it has been almost a month since I started this great experience. As an Interreg Volunteer I joined the Managing Authority of the Interreg VI-A Italy-Slovenia 2021-2027 Programme in Trieste, Italy. So far, everything is going well, being a volunteer is a very rich experience at both personal and professional level. My involvement at the Managing Authority consists in supporting communication with the aim to promote the work of the Programme and European Territorial Cooperation. I had the chance to work on several different tasks, making the work interesting. By now I’ve done things such as translation, data revisions, participate to EU meetings, writing reports, post news and events on website and sharing social media content. From the very first moment I arrived, I was warmly welcomed by my colleagues. They are available for any kind of questions or problems that may occur. It is a great opportunity to volunteer in a multicultural city on the Italian Slovenian border. Also on work place all thoughts and task are shared in both languages, embodying the European spirit. To improve teamwork and connection between co-workers we also share a meal all together once a week. – Francesco, IVY Reporter at the Managing Authority for the programme Interreg Italy – Slovenia Discover more about the Interreg Italy – Slovenia programme Click Here

Hello everyone! My name is Laura, I’m italian and it’s been a month since I started my experience as IVY Reporter at the Italian National Contact Point for the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme at Regione Veneto. The Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme is a European funding programme that encourages transnational cooperation projects to make regions and cities more resilient to common challenges. Thought the European  Regional Development Fund, its goal is to create a smarter, greener, better connected and more integrated central Europe. More specifically, the Italian NCP is appointed to provide information to potential applicants, suggest and assist beneficiaries, communicate programme achievements and support programme management. As soon as I arrived to the office I have been involved in communication activities such as social media content creation, implementation of the new regional website, and organizing the European Cooperation Day in September. The main aim of my daily task is to disseminate to the community/general public the outputs produced by project fianced during the first call financed by the programme 2021-2027of the project in our territory.  Since the beginning, I have been supported by the team, which not only warmly welcomed but also always give me the right directions and advises in order to improve the daily tasks and understand more in detail all the process of the programme. Even it is only been a month since I am here, I feel I am really improving my communication and organizational skills and I cannot wait to see what the next months will bring me! – Laura, IVY Reporter for the Italian National Contact Point for Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme Discover more about Interreg Central Europe Click Here