The "Ville de Nevers"

The "Ville de Nevers" is a local public body of France. This "commune" has an experience in international relations since 1959 with the first twinning with Mantua in Italy and Charleville-Mézières in France. Ten other twinning agreements with foreign cities were signed from 1963 till 2015. We are sending and hosting European volunteers since 2011. Our town has around 33 000 inhabitants and is the prefecture of a rural department in Burgundy. This department, "la Nièvre" has 207 182 inhabitants (Source: INSEE, 2017); 72,3% of whom are 30 years old and over. There are around 850 municipal officers working in many areas. In addition to technical services, human resources and finance services, the town administration acts in the following areas: - education: relations with schools ; extracurricular services such as catering, childcare and educational activities - infancy and childhood - youth and citizenship, with local councils for children, for teen-agers and young adults, support to international mobility - culture with a museum, the heritage animation department, a media library, a theatre, a conservatory of music and dramatic art, support to stakeholders in local cultural life - sport: management of sport facilities and activities for children - proximity services to the population: health, intergenerational bond, relation to the associations, etc. The town administration contributes to the training and integration of young people by welcoming them under apprenticeship contracts, internships or volunteering programs in many departments. Considering the importance of the geographical mobility of young people as a source of social mobility, cultural openness and as a factor favourable to the professional integration, successive municipalities have seized the question of youth international mobility and implemented actions like exchanges through twinning, mobility grants for students, receiving trainees and European volunteers, etc. Today, the focus is on the European volunteering, both via hosting and sending young people by the European Solidarity Corps. The town hall targets all young people: pupils, students, unemployed... It especially targets young people hesitating about their direction after high school and those who have dropped education or formation without qualification, and struggle to integrate into society and the world of work. The Town of Nevers attaches to defend and promote the values of the Republic, the human rights, and anything that promotes "living together". It is concerned about its image of "International City". The activity of the international pole is divided in the following way: - Information and awareness through meetings with young people in the various places they frequent - Communication through local media such as radios, a News magazine, a website, a blog and Facebook pages dedicated to international relations and European youth mobility. - Assistance and support for young people who have an international mobility project, - Awareness of other language and cultures - decentralized cooperation through existing twinning and a new partnership with a city in Serbia.