Association DESA – Dubrovnik and Crafts College, in cooperation with the Croatian Chamber of Crafts, organized a round table entitled “SUSTAINABILITY OF GEOGRAPHICALLY ISOLATED / REMOTE ISLANDS IN THE CONTEXT OF EMPLOYABILITY AND SOCIAL INCLUSION OF YOUTH ISLAND POPULATION – PROBLEMS, OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES” which will be held on January 20th , 2015. from 11:00 a.m. to 02:00 p.m., at the premises of Croatian Crafts Chamber in Zagreb, Ilica 49 / II.
The round table is organized within the project “Promoting employability of young people on geographically isolated / remote islands” which is co-financed by the European Union through the Operational Programme Human Resources Development Scheme grant “Support programs of civil society organizations in the field of advocacy and motivation for socially excluded groups “. Following on the round tables organized within the above mentioned project at the local level, the main objective of this event is to further address the issues of sustainability of geographically isolated / remote islands, notably Croatian islands which are under the provisions of the Law on Islands (OG 34/99, 149/99, 32 / 02, 33/06) sorted in the first group, all in the context of increasing employability and social inclusion of young insular population.
Particular emphasis will be placed on consideration of opportunities and challenges for:
- Further cross-sector networking and more effective advocacy at EU level regarding the relevant issues of sustainability of Croatian islands that are sorted in the first group
- More pro-active launch of national / inter-sectoral initiatives that could be financed under the European structural funds and investment funds, which are not articulated in the existing national strategic documents / operational programs.
Consequently, a special guest of the round table will be mr. Christian Pleijel, representative of the European Small Islands Federation (ESIN), the European umbrella network for advocacy of sustainability of European small islands. As an expert for the issues of European small islands, Mr. Pleijel participated in a numerous relevant initiatives / projects on the European level, as well as the project “EUROISLANDS: The Development of the Islands – European Islands and Cohesion Policy” implemented in the framework of the ESPON (European Spatial Planning Observation Network), which is coordinated by the European Commission. Currently, Mr. Pleijel is the representative of ESIN in the recent initiative of the European Commission “Structured Dialogue Group on European Structural and Investment Funds”.
In the framework of the round table will be officially presented the connecting into ESIN network the Island Parliament – the Association for the development of the Croatian islands, which occurred primarily as a result of the previous activities of the project “Promoting employability of young people on geographically isolated / remote islands”.
