Eight cities have submitted their applications to become the 2021 European Youth Capital (EYC) and now are going through the first round of the selection procedure.
The cities: Yaroslavl (Russia), Aalborg (Denmark), Chisinău (Moldova), Greater Nicosia (Cyprus), Klaipėda (Lithuania), Varaždin (Croatia), Kazan (Russia), Kaunas (Lithuania) are all in the running to be awarded the 2021 European Youth Capital. The winner will be announced in November 2018 in Novi Sad – European Youth Capital 2019.
Since Rotterdam, the first European Youth Capital, in 2009, the title has been an opportunity given to European cities, for the period of one year, to showcase, through a multi-faceted program, its youth-related cultural, social, political and economic life and development.
Being a European Youth Capital encourages the implementation of new ideas and innovative projects by and for young people. It also helps to strengthen the relationship between the city and the European institutions. It is a great way to increase youth participation at local level, but also linked to their role in Europe and complementary nature of local, national and European citizenship dimensions.
Candidate cities are selected according to their program, budget proposal and local support (from local government and youth organisations). The applications will now be analyzed and discussed by a high level independent Jury composed of members from European institutions, civil society organisations, media and the academic world. Based on that, shortlisted cities for the second round of the competition will be announced on March 16th 2018. For the third round of the competition the applications also take into consideration the recommendations made by a focus group that consists of representatives of the European Youth Capitals that have already been awarded the title.
This year, the European Youth Capital is Cascais, in Portugal. It seeks to combine global and local dimensions, towards the process of social transformation, under the theme “ Local Youth”. It is a year of sharing experiences between local and international level, a year of enhanced youth participation and inclusion in the society to foster global citizenship. The year will be full of events, seminars, conferences and much more.
Discover more about Cascais 2018 here: http://cascais2018.eu/en.
The full programme of Cascais 2018 can be found here.
It is also high time for you to plan your trip to Novi Sad (EYC 2019) and Amiens (EYC 2020).
Stay connected on the European Youth Capital to keep updated on everything about this great one-year opportunity, which is open to every European city.
More info: European Youth Capital website.
