The attention of EGTC GO and GO! 2025 towards young people continues these days with a study visit within the European project FLIP and the activities of the youth engagement group in GO! 2025, led by EGTC GO.

From Tuesday, November 4, until Friday, November 7, Gorizia and Nova Gorica are hosting around 25 young people from Italy, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Portugal, and Poland, who are discovering the European Capital of Culture and the cross-border reality. The activity is part of the FLIP project (funded by the European Erasmus Plus programme), in which EGTC GO is a project partner. The initiative aims to provide young people with the tools to make a positive impact on their local communities, offering them knowledge in financial and managerial fields as well as concrete practical skills. The study visit programme includes both training on these topics and examples of best practices developed in the area.

Local participants in the FLIP project, young people from Gorizia and Nova Gorica, have also contributed to the project’s activities through actions carried out by the youth engagement group in GO! 2025, coordinated by EGTC GO experts.

The youth group established within the framework of the European Capital of Culture GO! 2025 is made up of 40 young people aged between 17 and 27. The five group leaders, together with the EGTC GO experts, have led a participatory process to identify three projects capable of generating well-being for young people in both cities, contributing to the creation of a cultural vibrancy that will, in the long term, serve as an element of attractiveness for the cross-border area and its new generations.

Among the proposals that emerged, the group expressed the desire to modernize and make more welcoming the basketball court located on the border between the two cities, in front of the symbolic Rafut crossing. Through a co-budgeting process — which also involved two beneficiaries of the ArtCycle project, financed by the SPF GO! 2025 fund managed by EGTC GO — the young participants were able to study and analyze the space together with urban planners from Kallipolis, a non-profit association from Trieste and partner of the ArtCycle project, to identify the main needs and ideas. Among the actions already completed is a painted ground artwork developed in collaboration with artists from the Slovenian association Kud Manifest. Urban furniture is also being designed to make the area more welcoming for non-basketball players, including tables, chairs, benches, and possibly a small stage to host performances and concerts.

“Involving young people has been, and still is, one of the main objectives of the European Capital of Culture, and we have been working on it from the very beginning,” comments Romina Kocina, Director of EGTC GO. “Thanks to European projects, we have been able to concretely launch initiatives that foresee the direct contribution of young people, the exchange of knowledge and experiences among them, but above all, we have given them the opportunity to be active participants in the development of the areas in which they live.”