CALL FOR STORIES

According to Eurostat, the 15-29 age group represents currently 19,3 % of Europe's population.

“Hey, we’ve got something to say” is the message passed on by the UBC Commission on Youth Issues to the Baltic Sea cities and the whole region. The youth is a very important resource of local and regional development. The participation of young people brings in new dimensions, perspectives and expertise in the municipal work. They are not a burdensome responsibility but a social potential which can be mobilized to achieve higher goals.

What shall be borne in mind, is that this group is especially vulnerable to social and economic threats. A rising number of young people is facing unemployment, making them feel frustrated, fearful and hopeless.

The next Baltic Cities Bulletin will be entitled:

Youth prospects and participation

The Editorial Board would like to invite you to share the experience on youth involvement in your cities. The youth needs to be properly equipped to take advantage of opportunities, such as civic and political participation, volunteering, creativity, entrepreneurship, sport and global engagement. What does your city do to use the youth potential? Best practices, describing youth involvement, participation and youth work in general can be described.

Also, the stories on new, innovative and creative youth projects, youth influence and social media, co-operation and networking are more than welcome.

Last, but not least, the Editorial Board would appreciate the articles on combating youth unemployment. How to deal with this major problem? How to promote entrepreneurship?

As usual, apart from the main theme, we are looking forward to receiving stories on interesting events and daily life news from our member cities. Those articles are published in the chapter "News from Member Cities". The UBC Commissions are welcome to inform about their events, meetings and projects in the chapter "UBC Today".

Please follow these guidelines when submitting your story:

• Deliver the story by e-mail to: MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "info@ubc.net" claiming to be info@ubc.net in MS WORD format. Please remember to kill the viruses before sending it. Please expect confirmation of reception. Lack of confirmation means that the message is not delivered.

• Each member city may submit two articles - one related to the cover theme and one to the chapter "News from Member Cities". All stories shall be sent in English.

• Each article may have max 400 words, no more than 1 page A4, font TimesNewRoman 12pt. The editorial board sometimes needs to shorten the stories in order to include more stories into the Bulletin. It is also important to include the author's name and contact details for any follow-up questions related to the story.

• Please make all efforts to include a smashing photo or a digital picture to illustrate the article (JPG format, min. 300 ppi, one e-mail - one picture, the file should not exceed 3 MB). Remember to send us also the coat of arms of your city, if you have not sent it earlier.

• The deadline for stories to the Bulletin is 28 September 2012. Please respect this timetable as we are unable to print out stories received after this deadline.

All the material should be sent directly to the UBC Secretariat in Gdańsk. If you have interesting issues to report, please do not hesitate to send them.

The bulletin is distributed in 6000 copies all around the Baltic Sea Region to over 200 Baltic cities and numerous key organizations and institutions, including the EU.

• Call for stories (347.87 KB)

Looking forward to your reply,

Paweł Żaboklicki

UBC Secretary General