Dear Friends!
Following those summer vibes, I am happy to announce some important novelties.
After two years together, as a way to celebrate our Youth Employment Online Magazine’s second birthday, I am glad that you will be reading this number in a new, renovated form. As you will see scrolling the pages, the graphic layout has changed and – from now on – I am sure that reading our Mag will be easier. And the great thing is that we listened to our Projects’ proposals.
We have grown together, mixing up and putting together our Projects’ ambition and our Team’s reflections: we got a makeover! The YE Mag is now a new experience, we have taken a step forward, hoping it won’t be the last! Our Team, indeed is NOT only the editorial group, I like to intend it as the entire YE Family Team!, and see below:
Because this is not the only novelty. What better way, than to announce this new look, to introduce our new friends to you? You know we always do our best to enlarge our Family and thanks to our Donors we made it also this time. I am honoured to present you the eight new Projects of the Fund for Youth Employment, selected under the second call “Unlocking Youth Potential”: 8 Lead Partners, 49 Beneficiary Partners, 22 Expertise Partners (8 from the Donor Countries and 14 from non-beneficiary EU Member States, plus 1 international organisation).
Ranging between three main priority areas (analysis and research, innovation and exploration, transfer of know-how and good practice) they target 1,300 researchers, 500 SMEs and, above all, 10,000 young adults.
Thanks to the additional funding (11,5M€) made available by the EEA and Norway Grants, eight new project consortia are now part of our Family and I am sure that – in the name of transnationality – new forms of collaboration and cooperation will arise. To start thinking about those new possibilities, we have decided to dedicate the first space of our Mag to the presentation of our new Projects.
But, not to forget the rest of the Family 🙂 we are happy to see that new forms of collaboration are arising as well within the already ongoing YE Projects. We had an online meeting some weeks ago (hopefully one of the last to be done virtually…) and we welcomed the idea of groups of projects creating together some contributions. Do you remember when I told you, months ago, that there was a natural inclination towards clustering? This is part of what I meant and I am sure that, in the following months, we will be able to see something interesting. Therefore, thanks to our Projects for their interest and, above all, commitment. We had a fantastic example of best practice with our Project SEPAL, in particular Alina and Vasi and their “Let’s Neet together”, an initiative which – while being unfortunately still online – brought together different YE Projects and millions of new ideas and perspectives. Now we can see the joint work of YES! Partners, I am sure that Giulia, Yiorgos and Joerg will tell us more.
There is, however, another important initiative that cannot be forgotten. Do you remember, at the beginning of the Pandemic caused by Covid-19 and the difficult months passed under a lockdown? I think we all remember a period that hopefully we don’t have to repeat. During those months, our YOUTHShare Project set up the “Covid 19 Regional Labour team”, a spin-off of this Project. Their Annual Report is ready, Nikos Kapitsinis, Anna Saroukou, George Sykas, Dimitris Psarologos and the rest of the Team are presenting an overview of the Covid-19 effects on employment during 2020, with evidences from Cyprus, France, Spain, Greece, Italy, Malta, Croatia and Portugal. Another inspiring practice to put into our “baggage”!
Last but not least, this month’s edition is dedicated to another important theme: social inclusion, migration & ethnic groups. Topics touched by all our Projects in some ways, since now a day migration flows are part of the ordinary administration of every state and social inclusion, even if we consider this question as detached from migratory phenomena, is a matter of all societies. Unfortunately, inequalities increase in tandem with poverty and some of the weakest subjects are young people and women.
There are, in my opinion, some contributions that are worth reading to get an idea of how our Projects deal with some of these problems, which are none other than those “common challenges” to which we-they try to find a solution.
I won’t be longer since I don’t want to divert your attention to our new Mag. Therefore, while always being repetitive in saying that we are waiting for you, enjoy our renovated Magazine and, above all, I hope you will get new inputs and food for thoughts.
Good luck to all YE Projects submitting their restricted call for additional funding by next 1st September, we are anxious to see your new proposed joint activities.
The Fund Director
Gian Luca Bombarda