Promotor:
Governo dos Açores
Conference Jovens 2008 – Açores / Comunidades: uma ponte para o futuro took place in Ponta Delgada, from 2 to 6 August, 2008, under the support of the Regional Department for the Communities in partnership with the Regional Department for Youth.
This conference’s goals were: to provide consideration and debate among young people from the communities, bringing them closer to Azores’ juvenile associative movement, to arouse their interest in their ancestors’ place of origin, and to build bridges towards the future and towards the consolidation of young people’s political and civic participation in the communities.
Young people from several associations of the Autonomous Region of Azores took part in this conference in order to find new ways of communication and of cooperation between young Portuguese descendants and young people from the Azores.
An understanding platform (Declaração de Ponta Delgada) arose between them from this conference, a project which will bring new dynamics to the communication between the Azores and their communities.
That group aims to deepen the relations between the Azores and the communities and to make them more dynamic, by gathering efforts; to encourage young people’s active participation in civic activities; to publicize and promote the Azores’ and the communities’ contemporaneity respecting tradition; to develop, share and work out projects by implementing global strategies.
The group of proxies (representatives from the Azorean communities and from the Azores) maintained a permanent dialog, formatting ideas and projects, and a prototype of the internet site.
This group’s first meeting took place from 5 to 7 December, 2008, at the U.P.E.C. – União Portuguesa do Estado da California, in San Leandro, and at Casa do Benfica, in San Jose, California, and some young Portuguese-Canadians also took part in it as counsellors of the Portuguese communities in Canada.
