Time4All: promoting the cooperation among citizens, towns and cities on time policies and right to time

ended

Time as a value and as a new component of European citizenship can be conceptualized as a right for all citizens. For this reason a better time organization can improve citizens health, equality, productivity, sustainability and civil participation. So, time policies need to be promoted and reinforced, especially in the post-pandemic period, which has shown the importance of time organization and care for a more sustainable and equalitarian life and which has transformed the relation between work and time. Since the 90s, some EU municipalities have been pioneers on promoting time policies. With this project, the existing (since 2008) European Local and Regional Governments 'Time Network', which has 20 local partners across EU, aims at: 1) expanding, deepening and intensifying the cooperation and exchanges of towns, cities and regions to improve the use of time; 2) fostering time policies amongst the European municipalities and contributing to a new narrative for Europe; 3) promoting the involvement of citizens in the definition, implementation, and evaluation of time policies. The project expects to reach about 1.700 participants, made up by local policymakers and citizens, in particular youth and women, who are the ones suffering disproportionately the effects of time poverty. To reach these goals, ten work packages (events) will be implemented until the end of 2024, including a) Kick-off, b) annual networking events to raise awareness and set common priorities of the 'Time Network' for the next years, c) events to share and exchange good practices, d) events to raise awareness of the citizens (Capitals of Time) and to foster citizens participation and to provide training activities (European Summer Time School). Consequently, a lot of municipalities across Europe will implement more and better time policies to ensure the right to time for citizens, meaning that they have the possibility to have a more egalitarian, healthy and sustainable use of time.