Eurobus has become an annual project accompaigning the celebration of Europe days in Ukraine. In May 2011 it will be the 4th time, when the Eurobus tour will travel across Ukraine. A team of 12 young EU representatives and 3 Ukrainians will travel across Ukraine for over two weeks. Each of 8 towns or villages, lying on the Eurobus itinerary, will celebrate the Europe days. Young participants will conduct training sessions on Eurointegration topics for high school pupils, spread informational materials about the EU and opportunities for youth in it, and, finally, realize with the local community an initiative suggested by the youngsters at the preparatory trainings.

There are two unique features of the project: first, it’s target audience are people from rural locations mostly in Eastern and Southern Ukraine; second, we especially stress informal communication (living in local families, common communication and trainings).

Thus, the project is aimed at solving two basic problems:

1. low level of awareness and, as a result, stereotypic thinking about Ukrainians and EU citizen towards each other;
2. passiveness of Ukrainian rural youth and their low motivation for civil activity aimed at solving the problems of a local community.

At the preparation stage a series of trainings for local coordinators and youth will be conducted. The Eurobus tour itself will start on May, 5 in Warsaw with a 2-day introduction training and participating in Schuman parade. The most active representatives of local communities and the EU participants will be invited to start the project in Warsaw.

The “Eurobus 4: European youth to Ukrainian communities” project is organized by young people from the Kharkiv branch of Ukrainian National Youth NGO “Foundation of Regional Initiatives”.

The project is financed by the European Program of International Renaissance Foundation and co-financed by the European Union delegation to Ukraine.

History of the project

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The cooperation between the project partners started in May 2005, when the Casimir Pulaski Foundation and the Forum of Young Diplomats (Poland) accepted interested in the EU issues guests from Ukrainian NGOs. The guests were interested in the EU issues and had participated in the international “BUT” conference (“Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey: why not in the EU?”). The conference was an official event organized during the third summit of the European Council. The participants discussed advantage and disadvantages of entering the EU. This meeting was a unique opportunity to find out different ideas from the EU neighboring countries considering the issues of integration process and expectations from the EU.

As a result of this conference, Casimir Pulaski Foundation and Forum of Young Diplomats (Poland) organized  in Jachanka (not far from Warsaw) an international seminar on topic “Cooperation of Polish and German NGOs with Eastern partners from Kaliningrad region and Ukraine: How can we help?”. After five days full of lectures, presentations, discussions, views on Polish-German-Eastern partners cooperation, young people processed a number of ideas suggested by V’yacheslav Gusev (Kharkiv Branch of “Foundation of Regional Initiatives”, Ukraine) and Pavlo Romanchuk (Jugend Bewegt Europa, Berlin , Germany).

During this seminar the head of FRI-Kharkiv suggested to found “Eurobus” project – a multinational bus, which would travel though Ukrainian rural locations and inform Ukrainians about the EU. 10 other NGO representatives were interested in participating in the project (e.g. “VIVAT SOKRAT” represented by Nadiya Dubrovina). The participants decided that the project would be coordinated by Casimir Pulaski Foundation. Besides, two German organizations – Jugend Bewegt Europa and TRIALOG – would participate in the project. The following months of work resulted in arranging all responsibilities of chief and local partner, which would coordinate the project. Finally, the participation of all NGOs was fully confirmed. As a result, the first Eurobus project took place in 2007. In 2009 the first project was followed by the Eurobus-2 trip with an international team on board.

Success of the previous projects caused an expansion of the project’s mission: in 2010 Eurobus visited 8 towns and villages, where mini-projects and Europe Days celebration were organized in the context of improving EU awareness. All these events were aimed at fostering the development of local communities and rural Ukraine. The Eurobus-3 project resulted in forming 3 initiative groups for starting an NGO. These NGOs were initiated by the youth from the visited towns and villages: Traostianets and Zhovtneve from Sumy region, Chumaky from Dnipropetrovsk region, and Sakhnovshchyna from Kharkiv region.

“Eurobus-4: European youth to Ukrainian communities” is a logical continuation of the previous projects. This year the project will be aimed at activating youth from rural locations and creating fit connections of civil formations on the basis of towns and villages selected for the project.

Donors

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The project is financed by the European Program of the “International Renaissance Foundation” and co-financed by The delegation of the European Union to Ukraine.