Timișoara - for European Youth Capital 2020 4.84

TIMISOARA is the 1st ROMANIAN YOUTH CAPITAL

For one year, from May 2016 to May 2017, young people and youth organizations are expected to get involved in diverse activities and projects in order to transform the city and to pin it on the map of young cities of Romania and Europe.

The program took the form of a partnership between an NGO - the Timiş County Youth Foundation, Timişoara Municipality and a private sponsor - the Romanian Commercial Bank.

In 2015, Cluj-Napoca was the European Youth Capital. The program implemented by the organizers - SHARE Federation Cluj-Napoca - showed that young people can have remarkable and lasting initiatives if a favorable context is created. Therefore, the PONT Group in Cluj Napoca, together with the national structure, the Youth Council of Romania, proposed the launching of a similar program, namely the Youth Capital of Romania. This program is supported by the Romanian Ministry of Youth and Sport.

WHY TIMIȘOARA?
Timişoara was the city that met the criteria for piloting such an initiative.
It is a young city,
• with a Local Youth Strategy,
• with a Local Council on Youth Issues
• and funding provided by authorities to the youth organizations on the basis of project contests.

ABOUT TIMISOARA - THE YOUTH CAPITAL OF ROMANIA

For one year, young people and youth organizations were expected to get involved in diverse activities and projects in order to transform the city and to pin it on the map of young cities of Romania and Europe.

"CHECK-OUTimisoara" (English meaning) is the urging of Timisoara Romania’s Youth Capital addressed to the young people, namely: check, inspect, get to know the city !, but also: go out of the enclosed spaces, in the street or in the nature to be with the other young people, to interact and produce results for you and the community.
"Ce Caut: Timișoara" ( “What I'm Looking for: Timisoara” - Romanian meaning) is the question young people from Timisoara ask in order to find their identity and to establish the necessary connection with their community and their city. This year we want to provide answers to this question through specific activities.

PROGRAM PILLARS:
1. INVOLVMENT – VOLUNTEERING
"To involve" means to attract. Through CHECK-OUT Timişoara, we wanted young people to get involved in the community life, to have the courage and the initiative to participate in activities that are designed for them. Youth development means society development.
Ce Caut:Timișoara (What I'm Looking for: Timişoara) aimed to raise young people's awareness of the importance of their long-term involvement and accountability in a city they feel bound to and to which they have a duty.
2. PARTICIPATION
Civic engagement is a process, not an event, of genuine involvement of people in the economic, social, cultural or political processes that affect their lives. The youth and civic engagement duet has the potential to transform the society. Timişoara aimed at releasing the civic energy of young people in 2016. We invited teh young people to be part of an inclusive exercise of active citizenship. On the one hand, we implemented the program Timisoara Youth Capital of Romania, and on the other hand, we jointly drafted the county youth strategy 2017-2021.
3. URBAN SPACE and OUTDOOR
Through Romania’s Youth Capital Project, we could clearly prove the importance of young people involvement in reinventing and animating the urban space so that they could become active in their community, and local authorities would better understand the role of young people in the city, their role in developing it. Therefore, CHECK-OUTimisoara invited the young people to discover the city with its bright and dark parts, to animate and recreate them, and the invitation to reflect on: Ce caut:Timișoara (What I'm looking for: Timisoara) would strengthen the connection between the individual, the community and the urban space.

THE TRANSVERSAL PRINCIPLE OF THE PROJECT: INTERACTION
All the activities and projects organized and included in Timişoara Youth Capital of Romania took into account the principle of interaction: interaction between young people, interaction between organizations, interaction between young people and authorities, interaction between young people and the community. CHECK-OUTimisoara, as well as Ce caut:Timișoara (“What I'm looking for: Timisoara”) were calls to action by initiating a relationship with others but also with you: a journey to the outside but also to the inside. By interacting with others, one could find out more about oneself and about being part of a community, oftenly done at a passive level, but no less subjected to influences or consequences resulting from choices made by others for yourself or in own name.

PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES
Purpose: Connecting young people with the urban space and to create a sense of belonging to the local community through interaction and involvement.
Specific objectives:
1. Participation of young people in the local level decision-making
2. Encouraging young people from other Romanian cities to participate in local and national decision-making
3. Involvement of young people from Timisoara in model projects that will be replicated in other cities in Romania
4. Encouraging volunteering through activities dedicated to young people member of different organizations or non-affiliated youth
5. Promoting long-lasting interventions of young people in urban areas
6. Inclusion of unseen, forgotten, peripheral spaces in urban revitalization projects
7. Encourage the organization of outdoor activities by young people and their participation in this type of activities.
8. Promote the international dimension of the relationship between young people of Timisoara, through the interaction between young people of Timisoara and young people from other countries living in the city.