EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Digital meeting place for young people

Digital meeting place for young people - Eindhoven, the Netherlands

Introduction

In the opinion of the City of Eindhoven young people should be able to make themselves heard, and be listened to. The Eindhoven welfare organisation Loket W has set up an internet meeting place for young people between the ages of 12 and 25 who dropped out of school. It is precisely young people like these who must be given opportunities for self-development and participation in the information society.

Description

The aim of the project was to provide a website that is run by and for young people. By providing young people with the opportunity not only to communicate with each other but also to make their own contribution to the site, they can become more involved with society.

Approach

The website contained information on subjects of interest for young people in Eindhoven. Young people themselves were responsible for the content of the site. They created their own online newspaper. A search engine allowed visitors to the site to find items in the activity diary. There were a number of chat rooms on current issues.

Results

As well as providing information for young people, the Rebelout site also provided youth workers with the opportunity to stay in touch, online, with issues affecting their target group.

Resources used

European subsidy: € 60.000
Total cost: € 125.000

EU involvement

This project has been partially funded with Objective 2 funds. Since 2000 nine cities have been eligible for the Objective 2 Urban Areas in the Netherlands programme, which forms part of the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRD) of the European Union. EFRD is one of the four Structural Funds of the European Commission. The programme helps cities to carry out projects that benefit disadvantaged areas.

In the Netherlands, total European Objective 2 subsidies concern 192 million euros. 4.25% of the Dutch population lives in the selected areas.

The European Commission prescribes that for every euro from the EFRD, a minimum of one euro must be contributed from the government. The cities must therefore add their own public or private funding to the European subsidy. The European programme is linked to the urban plans agreed within the context of the urban policy of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. For this, the cities can make use of funds that have been allocated to them in the context of the national urban policy.

Contact info

Eindhoven Focus - local programme management
Phone: +31 40 2370100

Project start date

04/12/2003

Links

City of Eindhoven

Document type

case

Themes

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Community development

Keywords

Community websites