The Sparks of Europe's Youth
Strasbourg, France, Brussels, Belgium
Story-telling and story-sharing has always been a tool bringing people together, sparking the understanding that vision, dreams, opportunities and hardship can serve as a basis for a better future, solidarity and understanding between fellow European citizens.
The best stories will be featured on our Facebook page and in Cafe Babel and will receive financial rewards.
At the last stage of the program, we would like to create an interactive map of Europe, regrouping the collected stories and pictures by country, region and historical period.
Our immediate goal is to embark on a year-long investigation and dialogue between different generations and professional groups in the European Union. More specifically, we will contact citizens representing different generations and share their personal stories regarding the challenges they face or had to face during their youth.
The goal of this story sharing experience is to reflect on our past and present, to focus on the future by tackling our current challenges and to create a pool of practical solutions.
In this context, SPARK will address an open invitation to Europeans to talk to fellow citizens, including respected seniors in their communities, about the challenges they faced and the lessons they learned.
Our program will start with a seminar in Strasbourg. The seminar will bring together 28 young professionals - one from every EU country - for a week-end long training. The training will focus on current issues facing the EU and will offer the participants the opportunity to meet interesting people.
In the same time, we will launch a campaign using social media channels to invite users to have meaningful discussions with seniors in their communities about the following topics:
1) Values, visions and dreams - what is their place in life?
2) Hardship and how to overcome it
(youth unemployment, access to higher-education)
3) Hobbies and favourite pass time
4) Culture and the difference it makes in life
(examples of the impact it had in life)
5) People - known and unknown - who marked my life
Dear community, please help us make this proposal as attractive and useful as it might possibly be. Thank you in advance!