Europa Nostra contributes to Erasmus Generation Meeting 2022 in Porto, Portugal
Europa Nostra contributed to the Erasmus Generation Meeting from 7 to 10 April 2022 in Porto, Portugal, both as a member of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) Awards Jury and as a session organiser. This event, which gathered more than 800 students from all over Europe, was one of the largest organised in the frame of the European Year of Youth 2022.
On 9 April, together with the Erasmus Student Network, Europa Nostra organised a knowledge exchange workshop entitled “Heritage goes Erasmus: the role of cultural heritage within student mobilities”. The session focused on cultural heritage as an asset for society overall and the mobility of students more specifically, by linking cultural heritage to the four themes of the conference: social inclusion, civic participation, sustainability and digital transformation. The approach targeted the co-creation of possible actions that could be implemented by ESN local sections and students during their mobility programmes. Europa Nostra’s EU Projects Officer Manon Richard and Europa Nostra / ESACH Trainee Miruna Găman, alongside European Heritage Youth Ambassador Tiago Candeias and Nathan Lusseau from ESN France participated in the workshop.
The session started with a short introduction to the themes and an upcoming survey on “Youth for the future of cultural heritage in Europe” to be launched by Europa Nostra in the frame of the European Year of Youth 2022.
🗣 Just wrapped up an inspiring participatory workshop on Heritage going Erasmus at @ESN_Int #EGMPortugal! Discussing 4 key themes for society:
💻 Heritage & Digital Transformation
♻️ Heritage & Sustainability
👥 Heritage & Inclusion
🙋 Heritage & Civil Participation #EYY2022 pic.twitter.com/MOpv2Bvtyw— Europa Nostra (@europanostra) April 9, 2022
The participants were then split into four groups, based on the main themes of the conference, and set out to think of concrete steps which could be taken to improve the mobility of students through our shared culture and heritage. The participants in the digital transformation group thought of an App that would enrich their experiences and facilitate their discovery of a new city, while those in the social inclusion group thought of actions that could help navigate intercultural barriers. The session on civic participation provided a better understanding of the actors they could collaborate with to make their projects a reality, while the session on sustainability emphasised key perspectives on how mobility can be more environmentally-friendly.
Europa Nostra was also a Jury Member of the ESN Awards 2022 in the category Culture and was proud to present the Award to the Gastronomix project by ESN Toulouse (France) during the Ceremony held on 10 April. The project was dedicated to sharing local gastronomic cultures, both French and international. It allowed the local gastronomic culture to shine through the promotion and the life of all the actors participating in it, while enriching it through intercultural encounters and exchanges during events based on interculturality. This project also aimed to have a deeper scope than interculturality, being linked to key aspects for the future of our societies, such as sustainable development, health, wellbeing or inclusion.
The Erasmus Generation Meeting spanned four days and included workshops, debates, inspirational speeches, a career fair and intercultural events.
