“Challenges and Opportunities to Town Twinning”
January 20, 2010
Youth society for peace and development in the Balkans is a partner to Plovdiv Municipality in a project under the Europe for Citizens programme, Action 1: Measure 2.2 Support measures. The Project “Challenges and opportunities to town twinning” will start on March 1, 2010 and its overall objective is focused on encouragement and development of town twinning relationships by adopting achievements, experience and good practices of the EU in this field.
Together with Asti Municipality, Italy the partners will work for raising the awareness of citizens and public authorities of the town twinning concept, involvement and coordination between the institutions and the civil society by the mediation of non-governmental organisations for initiating specific actions for strengthening the intercultural dialogue and development of twinning relationships. The interactive workshops, training seminars, cultural events, site visits, work meetings and discussions will develop new skills amongst the participants through variety of thematic cooperation work. Sharing best practices in supporting town twinning, providing practical advices and consultancy in this field will lead to improved quality of the activities in twinning relationships.
A variety of training seminars, cultural and social events shall be performed in Plovdiv.
The local community shall be encouraged to actively participate in the project planning and implementation.
All citizens shall be given the opportunity to take active role in the events envisaged, regardless of their gender, age or ethnicity. Disadvantaged people will have equal chance to get involved in joint activities.
The project aims to encourage active civic participation by involvement of a large number of participants, including representatives of NGOs, schools, universities, local associations in order to raise their interest in town twinning and commitment to EU integration.
Bringing together a wide range of participants from EU towns will allow them to share experience of the benefits of the EU integration, to exchange their points of view on the history and future of the European Union.
The project activities focus at raising the general public` s awareness of the importance of active European citizenship, based on common values, thus leading to development and improvement of town twinning activities.
Good communication, useful and constructive dialogue, exchange of ideas and experience are the main prerequisites for establishment of good relations between local governments, NGOs and organisations from the EU countries. They will contribute to strengthening of the mutual lknowledge and understanding between citizens and taking benefit of the partnership through structured cooperation with civil society, which will enhance the successful well-being in the European Union and will enable people to face together the challenges of today's Europe.
