2009 Youth Meeting

Through the Regional Directorates for Communities and for Sports, the Government of the Azores will organise the 2009 Youth Meeting in the city of Ponta Delgada on São Miguel Island from September 5 to September 7.
Addressed at the youngsters from the Azores and the Azorean communities, this meeting intends to provide a moment of reflection and debate among the youngsters form the communities, thus bringing them closer to the youth associations in the Azores, to disseminate the current Azorean reality in its multiple aspects, to promote the youth exchange and to draw the guidelines for the intervention in the Azores and in the communities in the short, medium and long term.
This meeting, whose programme will include plenary sessions, workshops and field trips, is the result of previous meetings held in the Azores and in the Communities, and aims to present consolidate projects which were created in 2008, when the 2008 Youth Meeting – Azores/Communities: a bridge for the future took place in Ponta Delgada from August 2 to August 6.
In addition to providing a moment of reflection and debate among youngsters of Azorean descent, this meeting also intended to promote the interest in the homeland of their ancestors and to establish a relationship for the future, as well as for to consolidate the youngsters political and civic participation in the Communities.
Aiming to find new forms of communication and collaboration between the youngsters of Azorean descent and the youngsters from the Azores, youngsters from several youth associations of the Autonomous Region of the Azores participated at this meeting.
As the result of last year’s meeting, a Platform of Understanding was created (Declaration of Ponta Delgada) by the presents, a project that will develop a greater dynamism regarding the communication between the Azores and their Communities. This group aims to deepen and boost the relationship Azores/Communities/Azores through joint efforts, to encourage the active participation of youngsters in civic activities and to disseminate and promote the contemporaneity of the Communities and of the Azores, respecting tradition, as well as developing, sharing and carrying out projects through the implementation of global strategies.
With the creation of the Centre of Delegates (representatives of the Azorean Communities and of the Azores), they have kept a continuous dialogue, creating ideas and projects as well as an Internet Portal, addressed at all the associations of the Communities and of the Azores, which will be presented at this year’s meeting.
The registrations are available online at: www.encontrodejovens.org.