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Hello fellow Europeans! My name is Viviana and since June this year I have been an Interreg project partner for the CILIFO Interreg POCTEP project at the host organisation Finnova Foundation Seville. Interreg POCTEP stands for Spain-Portugal Cross-Border Cooperation Operational Programme and is the European Territorial Cooperation programme that aims to enhance, foster and promote cooperation between Portuguese and Spanish entities to collaborate on environmental, economic and social issues common to both territories. CILIFO project is part of this cooperation framework. CILIFO stands for the Iberian Centre for Forest Fire Research and Fighting and its network is composed of different types of partners by competence and territory: the lead project partner is the Junta de Andalucia and within the partnership there are other regional and local public authorities representing the Algarve, Alentejo (PT) and Andalucia (ES) territories. In addition, universities and foundations collaborate in the CILIFO project as project partners. The objectives of bringing all these competences together are: To strengthen and combine the cooperation, the operating procedures and the training between the Forest Fire Preventing and Extinguishing devices in the cooperation area of the Alentejo-Algarve-Andalusia Euroregion. To promote lasting and quality employment creation in the area; reduce the economic cost of fires creating rural economy linked to the landscape. To improve the involved administrations and authorities’ capacity to respond to forest fires in the three participating regions. And through these objectives and activities create and establish a permanent center for the development and promotion of training, awareness, research and cooperation towards forest firefighting. My host organization, Finnova, is the partner responsible for CILIFO’s communication activities with the aim of disseminating CILFO’s achievements and activities. And in this role It is carrying out one of the best practice born from this project: Firefighting Open Innovation Lab. This best practice was honoured last year by European Commission with an important award: European Enterprise Promotion Awards. FOIL-CILIFO is the first business accelerator for forest fire and forest management companies. Through FOIL-CILIFO, all forest fire companies participating in the CILIFO network and activities receive business support advice. For example, the production of material such as newsletters, notices and electronic catalogues on calls, funding programmes, existing in the forest fire sector. In addition, FOIL-CILIFO promotes registered companies by publishing an electronic catalogue with all the information, objectives and targets of these companies, to also improve the network’s matchmaking system and create interesting CILIFO follow-ups. In addition, competitions called CILIFO ACCELERATHON were organised within FOIL-CILIFO to promote innovation of technologies and methodologies in the field of forest fires. During these competitions, green tech business ideas aimed at combating forest fires and climate change were presented and the winner was given the opportunity to apply for a European call for proposals with the support of FINNOVA to see the idea realised. As an Interreg project partner, I am collaborating in these areas of CILIFO communication, producing communication materials which will then be disseminated to the actors of the CILIFO network and I am also participating in the organisation of events such as the above-mentioned ACCELERATHON. Through this experience, I am learning a lot about how European regional cooperation works, its funding structure, the key actors in European regional cooperation and cohesion policy and the main challenges. And I can see how it becomes real and effective in the everyday life of our society. In the hyperlinks you can find all the information on the above 🙂 -Viviana Lattanzi, IVY Project Partner for the Interreg project “CILIFO”, under the Interreg POCTEP Programme, at FINNOVA Foundation Seville- 

My contribution at this time consists in collaborating with SVI.MED in the organization of an exhibition to be held in Syracuse, Sicily, from October 3 to 5 titled “Mediterranean green transition towards climate change adaptation and circular water management”. The international exhibition will be an opportunity to meet all the partners of Medwaycap and listen to well-known speakers from the institutional and scientific fields, coming from all the Mediterranean region to share their results, ideas, point of views and proposals on the issue. In the following months the exhibition will move first to Tunisia and then to Jordan. If you want to know more about the exhibition and the project here is the link: https://www.enicbcmed.eu/medwaycap-boost-solutions-and-strategies-wastewater-reuse-non-conventional-water-resource – Alessandra, IVY Project Partner for the ENI CBC MED project “MEDWAYCAP” at SVI.MED- Euromediterranean Center for the Sustainable Development.

Hi everyone! I am Federico and I come from Italy. A month has now passed since I started volunteering as Interreg Project Partner in the Interreg Europe Project S3UNICA and I feel I am learning so much during this exciting period! Here in the city of Trieste, in Italy, I am hosted by the Environment and Energy Directorate of the Autonomous Region Friuli-Venezia Giulia. S3UNICA: Smart SpecialiSation UNIvercity CAmpus belongs to the green projects of Interreg Europe and it promotes cooperation for energy transition between local councils and academic institutions. It is based on the interregional exchange of experiences among nine partners located in five different areas of Europe in Finland, Italy, Poland, Romania and Spain. These are local administrations and energy agencies as well as four universities: the University of Malaga, the Lappeenranta University of Technology, the University of Udine and the University of Trieste. The purpose is enhancing the contribution of universities in energy innovation policies as providers of technical expertise and as hands-on laboratories. The project includes five action plans that aim to create good practices of cooperation among local actors such as universities and public authorities or public-private partnerships, to increase the energy efficiency of universities buildings and infrastructure, and to improve the capacity of the actors involved to realise innovative solutions for better energy savings. The actions are inspired by the knowledge and experiences shared between the partners. As a key moment such as the transition to the second phases of realisation is now occurring, I had the opportunity to follow the concluding steps of phase 1 and the preparatory activities for the last phase. This is a great chance to learn how Interreg Europe cooperation projects are held: I was able to contribute to the conduct of these activities, participating in meetings and taking minutes, and also communicating with the other partners. It is especially interesting to work on the dissemination of activities, writing articles and updating the S3UNICA website and social networks. Doing so, I am interfacing with members of the local cooperation agency Informest which also works in the project. Thanks to this project I am gaining a real understanding of what interregional cooperation is and of how cohesion policies work in Europe. While I dealt with topics related to energy transition during my studies, here I am faced with a concrete application of cooperation on energy policies. Universities can contribute significantly to make local energy systems smarter, and S3UNICA is a great example of sharing knowledge and practices between European regions and how this can benefit territories by improving their capacity of managing energy services. I wish to thanks the International Volunteer Youth programme and AEBR for this very enriching opportunity and all the IVY team for the support provided along this experience. If you wish to know more about the project, have a look here: – Federico, IVY Project Partner for the Interreg Europe project S3UNICA at Friuli Venezia Giulia Autonomous Region -Central Directorate for environmental protection, energy and sustainable development

/*! elementor – v3.6.5 – 27-04-2022 */ .elementor-widget-image{text-align:center}.elementor-widget-image a{display:inline-block}.elementor-widget-image a img[src$=”.svg”]{width:48px}.elementor-widget-image img{vertical-align:middle;display:inline-block} Hello everyone, my name is Maria Kanellopoulou and I am an IVY Project Partner for the “MYSEA” project at EUROTraining Educational Organization in Greece. For the past 5 months I have been volunteering towards the implementation of the MYSEA Project, which aims to advance the skills of Youth, NEETs and women in order to find employment in sectors of the Green and Blue Economy. MYEA is funded by the ENI CBC Med Programme, a Programme that promotes collaboration between Euro-Mediterranean countries. For the MYSEA Project, organizations from 5 countries (Italy, Greece, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia) work together towards a common goal: to reduce existing and emerging labour market skills gaps through the provision of training and mentoring. While each country has its own national context, all of them share similar demographic challenges, skill mismatches, rigid regulations, gender gaps and persistence of certain socio-cultural norms. The resulting situation is high unemployment rates of youth, mainly NEETs, and women. Answering to this, MYSEA maps new occupational profiles in the agri-food and waste management sectors and offers 15 oriented vocational training packages, coaching, and on-the-job-training. A total of 1000 vulnerable people will attend these activities in order to gain the necessary skills to find a job. When I joined the project, we already had the results from the territorial analysis mapping the needs of the agri-food and waste management sectors in the participating countries. This meant that it was time to delve into the exciting but challenging task of developing a cross-border curriculum that would bridge the skills gap and increase the employability of our future students. In close collaboration with the rest of the team, I participated in meetings and discussions about the development of courses. I had the opportunity to express my ideas and brainstormed about how we can best help youth and women in all partner countries to improve their lives. I have an educational background in Special Education and Curriculum Design, so I was particularly happy to contribute in the project in this way. I knew the steps we had to take to design a successful course, but this was the first time that I got to see how people from different countries and backgrounds can collaborate by looking at their common needs and common Mediterranean identity. My volunteering experience in this project allowed me to experience first-hand what Cohesion Policy and collaboration is all about: listening to each other, coming up with ideas to benefit the most vulnerable above us, and being dedicated to achieving our shared goal. As I come closer to the end of my volunteering period, I am reflecting on everything I gave to MYSEA, and everything MYSEA gave back to me. I feel deeply that I am part of a cross-border team where many young people like me take part in the management and implementation of a project that will benefit other young people. In my opinion, this truly shows the power of collaboration and team-work, and I am grateful to IVY for allowing me to experience this first-hand. – Maria, IVY Project Partner for the ENI CBC MED project “MYSEA” at EUROtraining.

Hello, my name is Erika. I am an Interreg Reporter at Interreg POCTEFA, in Jaca, Spain. Interreg POCTEFA stands for “Interreg Program V-A Spain-France-Andorra”. By co-financing projects carried out by French, Spanish, and Andorran socio-economic agents located in the eligible cross-border area, POCTEFA seeks to promote and facilitate cooperation between the three countries. A programmed project can receive a funding of 65% of its total budget. For the period 2021-2027, the eligible regions are as follows: The program’s managing authority is the Working Community of the Pyrenees (CTP in Spanish and French) and currently includes 7 members. My role in the organization is to help the communication manager with diverse communication / collection of information tasks. Some of the things I do are: – Translating documents – Contacting projects from the 2014-2020 period to collect their results (to prepare for the event of presentation of POCTEFA projects results that will take place in Bilbao in October of this year) – Uploading social media and working on the webpage. As for my life in Jaca, I find the place to be quite charming. Despite being a small town, I like how you can see mountains everywhere. The city is filled with many interesting places to visit, and if you are bored, you can always catch the bus or train to another city. Here is a picture of me and the Ciudadela (and mountains) behind: Erika, IVY Reporter at Interreg Poctefa Programme.

“Cooperation moves mountains”. That was the first phrase I read as I entered the building where I volunteered for the last three months. The Joint Secretariat of Interreg POCTEFA is in Jaca, on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. The Programme provides co-financing for regional and local institutions from the North of Spain, the South of France, and Andorra. As an Interreg Reporter, I supported the project managers with translations, social media, and other administrative tasks. Nevertheless, the IVY learning experience has not just been about what I did, but also about the opportunities I got to take part in and develop. While preparing the news for the website and attending consortium meetings, I was able to better understand how the region is directly benefiting from Cohesion Policy. I had the chance to learn from projects that are connecting both sides of the Pyrenees through sustainable mobility opportunities, and projects that are bridging the gap between knowledge transfer in topics such as medicine or nature conservation. I became aware that those who benefit the most from cross-border cooperation are citizens. Thanks to the work of Interreg POCTEFA, the people living in the Euroregion Baiona-Donostia can now travel around the territory in an electric bus, and it’s easier for meteorological agencies to exchange data on climate change in the Pyrenees. Regional cooperation is blurring the physical borders inside Europe, and, through IVY, young people are starting to play an active role in the process. They’re the ones bringing forward brave ideas and moving mountains to pave the way for a greener and more inclusive Europe. Alexandra, IVY Reporter at the Joint Secretariat Interreg POCTEFA