Participation: The event involved44 citizens, including 3 participants fromthe city ofAltea (Spain), 2 participants from the city of Warsaw (Poland), 2 participants from the city of Noto(Italy), 29 participants from the city of Athienou (Cyprus), 2 participants from the city of Brussels (Belgium), 2 participants from the city of Ljubljana (Slovenia), 2 participants from the city of Sofia (Bulgaria) and 2 participants from the city of Elasona (Greece).
Location/ Dates: The event took place in Athienou (Cyprus), from 10/04/2019 to 14/04/2019
Short description: Eu and me
The first day of the meeting, that took place at the Municipal Centre for the Youth of Athienou on the 11 th April, started with the registration of the participants. The Mayor of Athienou Mr Kyriacos Kareklas welcomed all and he outlined the intensive work that would take place the two days of the meeting. He explained that the setup in the meeting venue was such that small group of people, from different cities, to be together and to be able to discuss the various matters that would come up at the meeting.
Then Ms Natalia Hurtado Miralles, on behalf of the Lead partner, Municipality of Altea, outlined various items of the work of the project so far, like the Working Group of each partner and how it should stay mobilised, the Local Actions and the preparation of minutes and other supporting documents. She also spoke about the project implementation so far and the next steps in the project.
Afterwards all the participants visited the nearby Monk Kallinikos house, where volunteers of the Municipality presented the production of dairy products -Cyprus cheese “halloumi” and others and a coffee break was given, with the produced products and others.
Returning to the Venue, all the participants attended the Group Activity “What is the EU doing?”, where experts and participants discussed on the application of EU policies at regional and local level; they also played the game Scavenger Hunt “Where is the EU?”, where participants were divided into groups and after instructions they received, they were asked to find the EU flag on the works of the city. The aim of this game was to realise the importance of the EU funding in the local initiatives.
Then the participants returned to the Venue, where they continued with the Creative Lab “My wishes”. Participants were encouraged to express freely their wishes regarding the European Union by Instagram. After a nice lunch, all gathered in the meeting Venue, where there was a presentation by Dr MichaelangeloAnastasiou, Doctor of Sociology, about “EU Challenges”. The presentation was very interesting and all the participants contributed to the debate with questions and suggestions.
The day closed with a session of questions and answers about the subjects discussed at this first day. At 20.30 a dinner was given at a local restaurant.
The second day of the meeting, that took place at the Kallinikeio Municipal Museum on the 12th April, started with the registration of the participants. Then an interesting presentation was given by Andreas Kettis, Head of the European Parliament Office in Cyprus, about the subject “The European Elections of 23-26 May 2019 and their importance for the Future of Europe”.
MrKettis answered many questions that the participants made. He introduced all participants to the website “This time I’m Voting” and guided them for signing up and joining this campaign.
Then 7 Junior Ambassadors of the lyceum of Agios Georgios, Larnaca, presented their work through power point presentation and showed a film prepared for the campaign “This time I’m Voting”. This was a European Journey, about Benefits, Worries and Euroscepticism. After that a group of other 7 students of the Museum School of Larnaca sang songs relevant to the event.
After the coffee break a presentation of the Transfer Network “Volunteering Cities” and the Good Practice of Volunteerism of Athienou was given, by the Mayor of Athienou Kyriacos Kareklas and then a presentation of the Kallinikeio Municipal Museum, by the Curator Ms Noni Papoui.
The meeting continued with the participation of all the participants, holding the flags of their countries and walking in the streets of Athienou asking locals if they could recognise from which country they came from. Through this a video was produced promoting EU elections and sharing the spirit that ‘‘United we are stronger’’. Returning to the Meeting Venue, an evaluation of the meeting in Athienou, Cyprus took place, with a strategic plan for upcoming steps in the project and the meeting ended with very good results.
At 20.30 a farewell dinner was given at a local restaurant.
