Ambassadors
Cities are the governance level that is closest to European citizens, but also the first ones to suffer from the economic and social impacts of climate change. Desertification puts additional pressure on water reserves in Southern Europe; floods are ravaging Central and Eastern European countries; and sea level rise is already an existential threat to coastal and port cities, always taking its toll on the most vulnerable ones. For this reason, cities must spearhead both climate ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and efforts to protect citizens from the adverse effects of climate change. Only by empowering cities to take such decisions, the EU will be able to deliver to its people, and we can wait no longer. A progressive Europe is the one that allows for that, building a bottom-up response to the real needs of European citizens. A progressive Europe is not one that lives out of its past, but one that builds its future by caring for its present.
As the most prepared youth of ever we can never turn our backs on the challenges. Your voice counts and there is a lot to develop.
Europe is our backyard, let's make it really fairer, more equal and more fraternal Together.
Can civil society to be independent from political life? I think that there is a moral distinction between social and political action. Social action is something altruistic, whereas, political action is something that is supposed to contribute to help social actions. However, in my opinion both dimension are tied to each other, it's not realistic to imagine political and social action separately. Civil society in many places plays the role that politics should play, namely listening to the real problems of citizens. Therefore, in this context the involvement of young people becomes fundamental. The opportunities for young people to participate in communities may influence their behaviour and development, contributing to increase their active participation in the community and in politics.
On a global scale, civil society organizations play an incredibly important role and NGOs are the main actors, doing a very hard job for instance after natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes they intervene to serve people affected and help them return to normal. In order to have a strong social impact, civil society needs to be supported by institutions, in economic terms but also for the creation of networks connected that can become an added value on the different territories, boosting social impact. The creation of networks that share common values is a fundamental pillar for improving the involvement of associations in civil society. European and National Institutions, in order to involve as many people as possible have to promote action with the aims to increase young people participation in civil society and political life, including:
- National service programmes;
- Give more space to social movements, including those among policy promoters;
- Sport and no formal mechanism to encourage civic participation;
- Round table among the main actors of civil society;
- Enhance spaces where civil society is heard by politicians, including the problems that civil society brings into institutions on the political agenda;
- Strengthening European networks in order to share common ideas; Therefore Education and training are a fundamental pillar on which to aim to improve participation in civil society contributing to sharing commons value and contributing to create a European identity.