Donegal Youth Council hosted young people from Norway in Letterkenny last week as part of a newly funded European Youth project.
The Youth Council have partnered with the Nordland Youth Council in Norway, to develop their YEP project, which is financed by the European Commission through the Leargas Erasmus + prorgramme.
The project, which will see the Donegal Youth Council travel to Norway in July, aims to offer the Youth Councillors from Donegal and Nordland the opportunity to learn from each other and examine ways they can better improve their own structures and methods of working at local and regional level.
The group have partnered due to the fact that they identified a number of shared issues, in that Nordland is a region in Norway which is very rural in nature and young people identified many similar problems they face in relation to rural isolation, travel and access to services.
As part of last week’s activities the group held presentations and workshops to examine how each group carried out their own work, while also developing recommendations for how politicians could better listen to and include the voice of young people in their respective regions.
The group then presented their findings to a number of county counciLlors in a special seminar in Letterkenny Public Services Centre hosted by Chairperson of the Letterkenny Municipal District Gerry McGonagle.
During their visit to Donegal the Nordland Group also got to visit sites such as Glenveagh Castle and even attended the Under 21 Championship Gaelic football match between Donegal and Tyrone in Derry last week.