ENgage, COnnect and emPower citizens living in the border towns of Europe

ongoing

With the EN.CO.P project, the members of the Border Towns and Islands Network intend to pursue their mission to support the development of sustainable, inclusive communities in which disadvantages in terms of geographical and institutional marginalisation are mitigated and in which the benefits of international cooperation and European integration have a tangible, increased impact. They wish to take advantage of the long term experience of the consortium in the field of networking and building exchanges between European local authorities and citizens on the major topics of EU citizenship. The EN.CO.P project widely addresses the scope of the CERV TN programme, since it aims at fostering awareness and knowledge on the benefits of inclusion and gender equality and communities’ integration, as well as debating and searching adaptation solutions at local level to the opportunities and challenges of cultural diversity and bringing citizens together to discuss the future of the Union and its democratic life. It will be able to translate, through training, exchanges, workshops and networking activities, what citizens and even local authority representatives may consider as abstract policy ambitions, i.e. the SDGs and their targets, the Gender Equality Strategy, the European democracy action plan, the New European Bauhaus initiative or the concepts such as integration and local governance, diversity management, gender equality, into tangible strategies, practices and tools that are relevant and actionable at local level. EN.CO.P directly targets 720 LAs’ civil servants/decision makers and CSOs representatives, as they are the main drivers of sustainable change in European local communities. The active participation of women and minorities is encouraged. Training and workshops at local level will be organized (8), interwined with 1 online training and 5 international events aimed at building in practice the learning and the tools acquired during the activities of training.