EUNIC Baltic roadtrip 2019

Youngsters from Baltic states are mapping the future of the border regions

October 23-30, 24 young people from three border towns – Valga (Estonia), Daugavapils (Latvia) and Šalčininkai (Lithuania) – are on a road trip to visit each other’s cities and discuss the opportunities and challenges of living in border zones.

As these three cities are characterized by their multicultural and multilingual community, relative distance from the capital and other cultural and business centers, as well as by similar social challenges, the project aims to deepen dialogue and cooperation between the youngsters of these cities. Asking the overall question „What is our dream for the future?“, the EUNIC Baltic road trip sets out to create a greater awareness of togetherness in these areas and across nations by enhancing people-to-people contacts. The road trip is organized by and the idea of the road trip is based on three thematic work areas – integration, social inclusion and European cultural heritage.

Each city – so-called „station” of the road trip – hosts youth debates and workshops conducted by local and international experts. In every city some particular topics are on focus, in Valga the focus is on involving young people in urban planning and city development.

The special guest of the Estonian program is Jim Koskinen, the 18-year-old former chairman of the Helsinki Youth Council, who will talk about the activities and the influence of the Youth Council on 28th of October at 17.00 in Valga Gymnasium. He will share how young people can make their voice heard as well as about how youngsters contributed to the Finnish EU Presidency programme! Everyone is welcome to listen to Jim!

On 29th of October a popular Estonian-Spanish artist couple Varvara&Mar will create together with participants an art project while mapping the cityscape through the virtual network (WiFi). Another type of city map will be created together with the School of Architecture who makes youngsters to draw up their own a map of Valga, incl. places and facilities that are most important and meaningful to them.

The final event of the tour will take place on October 30, 2019 in Riga where participants will summarize what they have learned in discussions and workshops, present their own mini-projects and visions for the future.

The project is organized by the cultural institutes and embassies from the network of EU National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) clusters of Baltic states
Supporters of the roadtrip: Danish Cultural Institute, British Council, Goethe Institute, French Institute, Finnish Institute in Estonia, Hungarian Institute in Estonia, Embassy of Spain in Estonia, Polish Institute in Vilnius, Nordic Council of Ministers’ Office in Latvia, Estonian Institute, Lithuanian Cultural Institute, Latvian Institute, European Commission.

The partners of the programme in Valga are the Municipality of Valga county, Valga youth center and the Vacational Training Centre of Valga county.

The full program for all three days could be found here.

Further information:
Estonian Institute
Kaidi Tingas
Estonian coordinator of the project
Tel +372 56698828

The EUNIC Balti Roadtrip is organized by 3 EUNIC clusters from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and it is financed by the EUNIC Global in Brussels.

EUNIC – European Union National Institutes for Culture is Europe’s network of national cultural institutes, with 36 members from all 28 EU member states and offices in over 150 countries. EUNIC members work in the arts, languages, youth, education, science, society, inter cultural dialogue and development. At a local level, EUNIC members join together in over 100 clusters – in cities, regions, and countries – to collaborate on common projects and programmes and to promote the role of culture in the EU’s internal and external relations.