AGORAVEIRO

Agoraveiro is a non profit and non governmental, private NGO, founded under the Portuguese law, by a group of young professionals from 3 different countries on 5th of May 2010 in Aveiro. Our main field of activities is promotion of an active citizenship, inclusion and healthy lifestyles and most of our activities are planned based on those principals. Step by step, Agoraveiro has become the most active local youth association, counting with 1 full time employed project manager, 3 EVS volunteers hosted in 2014, 4 EVS hosted volunteers in 2015, 6 EVS volunteers to be hosted in 2016, 6 EVS volunteers sent in 2014/15, over 40 active local volunteers, over 1000 members and over 7000 followers on social networks. The association is widely recognised within both local people and local institutions. We have been collaborating on different projects with some of the most relevant institutions - like the City Hall, high schools, University of Aveiro and we are often invited by them to share our experience and good practices, or to co-organize different activities. We have organised dozens of punctual but also long-term activities, most of them on local level, although we are as well active on international level as partners in transnational initiatives, youth exchanges, TCs and other programs. Our local activities are mostly powerful guerrilla actions (drawing attention of citizens to a social, environmental or other type of problem), workshops (as diverse as: knitting, philosophy for children, up-cycling, languages, origami...), activities where we promote healthy lifestyles (as for example creation of AMAP in Aveiro where we connect local bio agricultures with interested consumers), activities where we promote inclusion, as for example Human Library, etc. As for international projects, thanks to our partnerships about 50 youngsters from Aveiro, just in the last few years, spend time on project abroad and after coming back many times developed activities in their local community as a follow up of the project they participated in. Also, we hosted various multilateral projects within Youth in Action and Erasmus+, namely: one local youth initiative entitled "Generations to Gardens", one bilateral youth initiative "Art and Trust", a training course entitled "Lets do it Guerrilla Way" and 2 youth exchanges entitled "WAVE1" and "WAVE2". In March 2016 organised another TC, around the topic of inclusion and immigrants, entitled "A Mile in My Shoes", held in Belgrade, Serbia. Last but not less important, we co-organize annual TEDxAveiro and TEDxYouth@Aveiro conferences (around 500 participants each), where we promote entrepreneurship and innovation. TEDxAveiro is aimed at 18+ audience, while TEDxYouth@Aveiro has different concept - it is organised by youngsters from local schools (with our mentorship) and for youngsters <18. They are responsible for all the aspects of the organisation: design of the stage, catering, greening of the event, photos and shooting, post production of speeches etc. Most of the speakers at TEDxYouth are youngsters from local schools who come to present to the audience their ideas, projects or achievements. Our TEDx event is one of the biggest in Portugal and about a half of all the audience comes from districts different than Aveiro.