Hi, I’m Irene, a 25-years-old IVY volunteer for the Interreg Alpine Space project “Beyond Snow” at “Metropolitan City of Turin” and here are some highlights of my experience up to now.
During my internship at “Metropolitan City of Turin”, I discovered the opportunity to be an IVY volunteer for an European project connected to rural and mountain development, issues which I’m really interested in. In fact, the project “Beyond Snow” aims to face climate change challenges in ski mountain areas in 6 Alpine Region (Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Slovenia). Regarding the Metropolitan City of Turin the pilot area is formed by the municipality of Ala di Stura and Balme, in the Valli di Lanzo.
And so, at the end of February, I started my IVY experience!
As Interreg Project Partner, I supported my mentor in mapping territorial data useful for the project, in particular tourist, cultural and human resources to be valorised in the pilot area of the project. After that, I cooperated in designing a participative involvement of the local communities, to discuss strategies for a sustainable development of the area. I took part in those workshops and was so interested in discovering local dynamics, following and participating in the discussion.
At the same time, we analysed the data collected with the winter tourist survey, in order to discover what they need more to develop tourism in that area. Furthermore, I supported in writing down questions for the summer survey that will be launched on 17th may.
What I learnt thanks to this experience? As a IVY volunteer, I had the opportunity to know how a European project is built and how it works and the opportunity to meet the lead partners. I learnt how to improve tourism in mountain areas and to select what is important for a tourism development, such as cultural and historical heritage, and not only trekking trails. I liked to meet local people when we spread the winter survey among the territorial stakeholders (e.i. owners of farms and local stores, tourism operators): in this way I could know their ideas about the project and their willingness to cooperate to develop tourism valley.
What I appreciated most about this experience? Definitely the opportunity to coworking in the development process of this project, to exchange opinions and ideas to empower the mountain areas and the cooperation between project partners of different areas but with common problems. All the activities that I described until now, in my opinion, are functional to promote the cooperation between different European countries and to enhance the power of local communities that have to be involved in the local development.
– Irene, IVY project partner for the Interreg Alpine Space project “Beyond Snow” at “Metropolitan City of Turin”.
