Tourism, culture, education: The Covid 19 pandemic has hit hard many sectors important for the Alpine space. The Alpine regions are therefore working on joint projects in the EU Strategy for the Alpine Re-gion (EUSALP) to make the Alpine space resilient and fit for the future. To do this as sustainably as possible, they are now counting on the support of the next generation.
Young people between 18 and 29 who live in one of the 48 EUSALP regions in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland or Liechtenstein can apply to join the EUSALP Youth Council until 16 May 2021. Four young people from each of the seven Alpine countries – and thus a total of 28 young people – will get the chance to participate in the implementation of the EUSALP for one year.
Youth Council participants can get involved in the development of alpine-wide policies and projects that address the most pressing challenges facing the Alpine region. With the EUSALP Youth Council, young people are part of the EUSALP bodies and sit at the (currently mainly virtual) table for all decisions. They can propose concrete actions, projects and topics, present ideas to politicians from the EUSALP states and regions and raise awareness for the specificities of their regions at the European level.
In addition, young people will have the opportunity to discover new tools for democratic action in their daily environment. They learn to communicate, share ideas, debate, decide together and see linguistic or cultural differences as an opportunity. Thereby, EUSALP will have the opportunity to gather new ideas from those who will live in the Alps in the future.
Interested young people can apply by 16 May 2021 at https://eusalp-youth.eu/application-formyouth-council-2021/. Youth Council members will be selected at random from all applications received. As the Youth Council aims to reflect the diversity in the Alpine Space, the random selection will be weighted to ensure a balanced composition of young people from different EUSALP regions, of different genders, with different educational or professional backgrounds and with or without experience in youth organi-zations or projects.
The first EUSALP Youth Council will be established in July 2021 for one year. The EUSALP states and regions will cover the travel costs for meetings and events attended by the Youth Council members and provide them with advice and support.
The Youth Council is part of the project “youth.shaping.EUSALP”, organized by the Tyrol and the Euro-pean Commission and supported by the French EUSALP Presidency. In addition to the Youth Council, an EUSALP Youth Camp, various online tools for youth participation and the project competition “Pitch your project”, which will take place for the fourth time in 2021, are implemented.
More information: https://eusalp-youth.eu/