My Town Your Town Erasmus Project

Project Title

My Town Your Town

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Creativity and culture; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

My Town Your Town [MTYT] is a training project to raise youth employability, skills and inclusion through intergenerational tourism development.

The key feature of the project was for youth, aged 18 to 30 and formed a wide range of backgrounds including disadvantaged, to work with older mentors to produce a new interpretation, a new narrative, for an existing or new tourism or cultural destination in their local area, positioning it in a way to better represent the values of the EU and the multi-cultural facets of the host community, and to better appeal to 21st century visitors.

The active learning and mentoring programme was developed by partners, representing Cyprus, Italy, Croatia and Greece, and an expert partner from Scotland, UK. It is notable that the 4 delivery partners also represent the 4 countries in the EU with the highest youth unemployment [as of May 2018] and all have large tourism and heritage sectors. It is the key objective of the project to link and address these factors to provide more opportunities for young citizens.

MTYT has exploited the excellent potential that this wide sector offers and delivered a wide range of positive outcomes and benefits for young people. Youth increased their skills, unearthing talents, were provided with new opportunities and connections, and helped them feel more a part of their community by bringing new life to tourism.

To achieve this, the project, run a sustainable tourism training for the young people, developed and piloted the innovative interpretation tool together with the youth, the mentors and local SME tourism related businesses. The project published a new website that hosts the interpretations and tools, thus disseminating the outputs in an accessible, simple and fun format. The website enables youth organisations from across the EU to participate in shaping and capturing opportunities for tourism in their local area.

The methodology of the project was based on using two techniques, successfully piloted for the PLAN project, an Erasmus+ funded project which developed and tested: an Intergenerational Employability Mentor Model for youths and the experienced older generation/retired (EOGR); and the Cluster, a network hosted by the project partners, youth, mentors, SME businesses, and other local stakeholders. The cluster acts as a new player in the local area to support employability, social integration and mobility for youth.

The project’s training programme is based on the youth entrepreneurship training developed in PLAN, and the new MTYT tourism training and outputs. A minimum of 10 youths, 5 mentors 4 businesses and local partners participated in each area.

The Partners and Cluster worked together across nationalities to share good practices and experiences. The rich mix of participants enabled a rich mix of outputs. The innovative approach was designed to ensure that the learning, though not in a formal educational setting, is supported by educational professionals, and it is enjoyable for all ages.

The Cluster took place in a real active marketplace. Partners worked with industry players who can use the outcomes from this shared experience. Our rationale for this approach was based on our experiences in other projects where the outputs and dissemination does not always lead to uptake of the products and innovation, as it does not have a role in an active marketplace.

Participating youth, was offered training and workshops in many areas in order to develop their skills and competences. Along with the direct benefits for the participating youth, the project brought positive and long-lasting effects for the organisations directly involved, and indirectly for the local communities and tourism businesses in which the project was held.

The interpretation examples included highlights for:
– health and wellbeing tourism;
– monuments for future peace;
– stories beyond regional traditions and culture;
– hospitality and accessible cuisine in restaurants that are making their premises more disability friendly;
– tourism through a migrant’s eyes;

My Town Your Town’s top priority was to provide opportunities for all young people, through innovative and smart design. It has directly addressed a top challenge in tourism, as identified by the EU, the need to constantly innovate and develop new attractive products in a sustainable manner for local communities and the environment. Europeans can have a strong tourism sector for economic reasons, but also to better know each other and better see what unites them.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 79850 Eur

Project Coordinator

Cross Culture International Foundation Cyprus & Country: CY

Project Partners

• EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT INNOVATION NETWORK
• Petit Pas aps
• DIGITAL IDEA
• Udruga Murtila