Director’s Editorial – December Issue

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Dear Friends, 

It is with pleasure that I announce we have reached the last issue for this 2021. This has been, for the Regional Cooperation Online Magazine, the first year.

Our Regional Cooperation Fund’s Projects vary in terms of specific objectives and areas of intervention, but they are all contributing at common goals, deriving from the same challenges, shared within the EEA and Norway Grants entire community. The Fund for Youth Employment, indeed, is part of the same process. As you already know, the organised Regional Fund Week has been an important test bench for this concept, demonstrating the true meaning of our idea of Family. Regional Cooperation and Youth Employment Projects collaborated together, and they reached important results in terms of effects with respect to our audience. Our dedicated platform reached almost 1000 registered visitors!!

Besides, this is what has been confirmed by the evaluations we decided to send out: a request for feedback in the form of an online questionnaire was sent and the overall reception of the Regional Funds Week was very good. Most of the respondents were very satisfied. The main result, and most important for us, is that the majority stated that they are likely to take part in future meetings held by FMO and FO!!

Therefore, thanking for the praises and words of encouragement to keep up the good work, we have to start thinking about the next steps 🙂

Luckily, in our opinion, we face a great opportunity: 2022 will be the European Year of Youth and we will be in. Or, better, we have to be part of it, considering that actions towards youth have always been our core target from the beginning, despite the different areas of interventions. 

Following the direct words of the European Commission, and particularly the announcement made by the President Ursula von der Leyen in her 2021 State of the Union address, the Commission adopted the formal proposal to make 2022 the European Year of Youth: «Europe needs the vision, engagement and participation of all young people to build a better future, that is greener, more inclusive and digital. With this proposal, Europe is striving to give young people more and better opportunities for the future». In the words of President von der Leyen: «Europe belongs to youth», therefore «Europe must work first and foremost for the next generation».

This last issue, then, is not only collecting the most recent updates from our projects. It wants as well to be a sort of call to action. We are convinced that next year will be another fundamental milestone for successful outcomes. And being a Family, while this is the December issue of the Regional Cooperation Magazine, we are extending this thought to all of you, taking into consideration the Fund for Youth Employment and also any member which would like to be an active part of our efforts. 

We cannot not mention our Teaser about the Visual storytelling workshop, organised thanks to our collaboration with Tara Todras-Whitehill: our info-comm managers know they have to let us know something… while at the same time we are looking forward to seeing, in the early future, the results of this specific communication activity. For sure we will come back to you, and in addition to that we will involve you in the programming phase for next year: we would like to decide with all the Projects the topics/themes for the next issues. 

We all have the same goal: we can act in different manners but, at the very end, we are travelling in the same direction. 

Do you want to be part of this path? 

We hope to receive positive answers, which will be concretised through the active participation into our next activities and initiatives. 

Stay tuned to know our next steps. 

Happy new year to everyone that is reading us and accompanying us on this process. 

Gian Luca Bombarda 
Fund Director  

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