Hi everyone! I’m Irene and I’m at the end of my IVY experience at Metropolitan City of Turin as IVY Project Partner.

These months have been so full and important for my personal growth.

I’m so grateful to my host organization and to my mentor who support and guide me in volunteering.

Thanks to this experience I could know more how EU works with countries, in particular in border region and what kind of funds exist to develop vulnerable areas.

Helping my mentor in the project activities’ I could know better the mountain area near Turin and know local people. In fact, we went sometimes to Ala di Stura and Balme, the 2 municipalities involved in the project, to engage stakeholders in spreading summer survey to turists and also to do a walk-through to discover cultural and historical attraction. It was an opportunity to understand how develop tourism not only based on snow but enhancing other attraction of the pilot area.

Since the project ends in december 2026, Metropolitan City of Turin as partner of the Interreg project, is working to deploy a pilot action on the 2 municipalities. For that reason my host organization set up some meeting with local authorities and I had the opportunity to take part and participate to discussion about what it’s the better choice for a tourism development of the area.

In the last month as IVY volunteer, I helped my mentor in writing a draft of the strategic plan for tourism development in the pilot area and it was really challenging but satysfing because I could understand how this process works.

I’m so happy of my experience at Metropolitan City of Turin because it’s a welcoming workplace and I could learn lot of things about project and I had the chance to get involved in every activity!

It was an interesting experience that helped me to better understand what I want to do in my future!