Eurodesk Racconta – 2022 edition

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Comune di Cinisello Balsamo

Organisation:

Comune di Cinisello Balsamo

Country:

Italy

About organisation:

The City of Cinisello Balsamo is located in the North of Milan. Youth is the 20% of the population (75.659 inhabitants). The Muncipality offers to the youth some services such us the European Projects Department and, since 2016, the Eurodesk Service. The European Projects Department was born from the administration’s desire to boost the participation of the institution in European, national and regional programs for the development and growth of the territory. It promotes the non-formal education approach to:- develop the key competences for lifelong learning;- raise youth active citizenship;Its projects include internships, transnational experiences (Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps); sense of initiative and entrepreneurship development; Civil Service; training for youth workers).The main goal is to reach and inform more youth as possible, about the opportunities to develope the personal skills thanks to the experiences at local level and abroad.

Title of the project

Eurodesk Racconta – 2022 edition

Start date:

20/11/2021

End date:

23/12/2022

Objectives:

“Eurodesk Racconta – 2022 Edition” is a project created by the Youth of the Universal Civil Service who worked in the Europe and Projects Department of the Municipality of Cinisello Balsamo from May 2021 to May 2022. The Europe and Projects Department deals with the writing and management of local, national and European projects addressed to young people. Since 2016 the Municipality has hosted the Eurodesk agency thanks to which it is possible to involve young people and give information about European opportunities for them. This Project is one of the format on our social pages that aims to share, narrate and promote the experiences lived by some of the young people who have taken part in European opportunities offered to them and promoted through Eurodesk network that we created over the years.You can find our format section on our Instagram and Facebook pages "euorodesk_Cinisellobalsamo". It consists of posts with pictures and descriptions that come directly from the young people of our network. We ask each young person who takes part in a mobility project with Erasmus+ or ESC to share with us their experience and, after receiving their consent, we publish it.This posts are very useful to promote new activities and they have positive feedback on our social pages. For these reasons we decided to maintain a similar format which will be continued by the new volunteers which began their Civil Service in May 2022. They kept the same concept and modified only the graphics.

Why the project was: empowering young people, adapting to changing realities, or thinking out of the box:

This project belongs to the category of "empowering young people" as it is a project designed by youth to try to encourage their peers to have new educational mobility experiences and to make them aware of all the opportunities referred to them."Eurodesk Racconta - 2022 edition" is a project created by young people between the ages of 20 and 25 who were doing their Universal Civil Service at the Europe office in the Municipality of Cinisello Balsamo. The volunteers, enthusiastic about the mobility and training experiences they could have through the Eurodesk service, decided to open this new format trying to illustrate how interesting and useful these opportunities were.All the photos are directly taken by youth and through their descriptions they express how the experience made them feel, what they have gained from it. This is an example of peer to peer education. The page also offers informational videos, always produced by volunteers, about European opportunities. This aims at bringing a change in young people's perceptions of European mobilities and trying to make more and more young people aware of this reality. Thanks to our users we discovered that direct testimonials are a great tool to motivate them for new experiences.

How the project was inclusive:

Most of the experiences that are described online are financed by the European programs Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps. This gives to our project a European dimension.Some of the descriptions of our posts are in Italian and in English, this will help us with the dissemination of the project with our international network. We also consider our project “European” because all the activities that are described took place in a European country. With “Eurodesk Racconta – 2022 edition” the visibility of Eurodesk has increased significantly. First of all it’s in the name of the project. Moreover everything is posted in the official Eurodesk account of Cinisello Balsamo. All the participants know what Eurodesk is because before the departure or the activity we make an appointment with them to talk about Eurodesk and its mission.

Green aspect:

Our Project happens completely online, for this reason we avoid the usage of paper, plastic or similar materials which consume already limited resources or produce more rubbish.At the same time we are also trying to reduce the CO2 emission caused by email exchanges. To follow this aim, we started to ask all the participants to transmit us the needed information for “Eurodesk Racconta – 2022 Edition” during a face-to-face meeting that we used to do before any mobility and to just send us all requested content in one single email. With this decision we want the youth to raise awareness of the environmental niceties and its urgency to react.The carbon dioxide footprint of an email seems not the most obvious topic to talk about but it still has a negative impact on the environment, that's why we take it in consideration and think about possible solutions. Moreover, some of our posts in the section “Eurodesk Racconta – 2022 edition” are created by participants who are sharing their experience of taking part in Youth Exchanges handling the topic of the Climate Emergencies. Through this kind of dissemination we might motivate others to participate in similar activities and raise awareness on the topic.For us, a sustainable way of working and a positive impact on the environment and climate change has a high priority. For this reason we do the best we can and share these small actions that can have a big impact, with our users and the network to maybe inspire the others.

How the project has given a European dimension to your event and ensured the visibility and promotion of Eurodesk?

Most of the experiences that are described online are financed by the European programs Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps. This gives to our project a European dimension.Some of the descriptions of our posts are in Italian and in English, this will help us with the dissemination of the project with our international network. We also consider our project “European” because all the activities that are described took place in a European country. With “Eurodesk Racconta – 2022 edition” the visibility of Eurodesk has increased significantly. First of all it’s in the name of the project. Moreover everything is posted in the official Eurodesk account of Cinisello Balsamo. All the participants know what Eurodesk is because before the departure or the activity we make an appointment with them to talk about Eurodesk and its mission.

Impact:

Thanks to the numerous "Eurodesk Racconta – 2022 edition" posts, we have succeeded in reaching a not inconsiderable number of young people (more or less 10000 from the end of 2021). Youth were immediately interested in the format and said that through our stories they became aware of the countless opportunities addressed to them. "Eurodesk Racconta - 2022 edition" has proven to be an initial information tool regarding opportunities aimed at young people. Many youths contact us for support regarding European experiences specifically designed and directed to them. So many young people state that before Eurodesk they knew nothing about the experiences they could have in Europe; therefore, “Eurodesk Racconta - 2022 edition” has proven to be an excellent tool for informing young people.