María Montoiro, of Galician origin, is a lawyer, lives in Rennes and has been working on European projects for years. She is currently the project coordinator in Atlantic Cities and develops part of her work in our project.
Why Aych can become important for the Atlantic Cities?
After 2008 economic and financial crisis, the Atlantic Cities were notably touched by this negative event, bringing its population into increasing numbers of unemployment, notably within youth. Therefore, in today’s economical context with rising youth unemployment AYCH Project allows Atlantic Cities to work closely with young people interested by the creative and cultural sector on their projects, ideas and more so as to “shape the future for an innovative economy”. In a few words, AYCH will empower youth from all backgrounds.
Atlantic Cities is all about youth and has developed its “Atlantic Futures” programme for youth. It includes various initiatives and EU projects such as AYCH. It is a perfect match with our ambitions for young people. We see it as a wonderful opportunity to create new synergies and share our values across European cities of the Atlantic Area. AYCH also serves as an indicator for Atlantic Cities to evaluate the youngsters’ needs so as to develop new ideas and initiatives to favour their future employment. Furthermore, as a transnational association, Atlantic Cities is working within the project on political capitalisation so as to give more visibility to AYCH and promote its outcomes to EU institutions and organisations.
The European cities for a “new moment”, will this affect the youth of the European countries the situation with the United Kingdom?
The situation of the United Kingdom will affect directly European youth in terms of mobility, by restricting them mobility opportunities as once the United Kingdom will be out of the European Union they didn’t be part of an open space with no borders.
Mobility opportunities in terms of studies and labour opportunities are a key element for create synergies within European youth in creative and cultural sector.
What connections can young people from European countries create through a project like Aych in the future?
Thanks to AYCH young people from various countries sharing the same interests have the opportunity to work together on new ideas but also to develop their intercultural knowledge. Once the project will be over, they can keep in touch through a network of former AYCH members which could act as a continuous platform for collaboration.
Moreover, Youth taking part in AYCH project will be in direct contact with business and organizations working in creative and cultural sector which will allow them to keep close ties afterwards. It will be very good for those looking for an internship or wanting to develop their own business in the future.
