Edremit, where mountain and sea tourism go along with thermal tourism, turned into a district with its 150

Edremit, where mountain and sea tourism go along with thermal tourism, turned into a district with its 150.000 population since its province, Balıkesir, became a metropolitan city. It is possible to reach our district by car, sea and airplane via scheduled international flights of Koca Seyit International Airport, which extended our vision and opened our doors to the world. The EU project department of Edremit Municipality is committed to developing international projects in order to establish strong and enduring networks of synergies and collaboration with European Institutions, local authorities and civil society organizations, in the frame of the European participatory principles of dialogue and cooperation, supporting intercultural exchanging opportunities and fostering young citizens initiative spirit and the value of solidarity. All our efforts are addressed to ensure more facilities and opportunities for Edremit young citizens, especially for those who are both in financial and social disadvantaged condition, trying to be an active point of contact between them and European Union activities, values and initiatives in the frame of non- formal education, active citizenship and the value of solidarity on which Europe Union is built. ESC program represents one of the most significant tools throughout our municipality can concretely offers a wide variety of opportunities to different individuals of our community and organizations and in this concern the ESC (European Solidarity Corps) is one of those programs we intend to enhance in order to encourage non-formal learning, inclusive society developments and positive cohesion in our local community. As local administration we know that effective local youth policies can be developed and implemented only in a bigger European frame of democracy, active citizenship and facilitated mobility reinforced by the value of social inclusion. For this reason on October 2018 Edremit Municipality applied the call developed by the Turkish National Agency in order to be an EuroDesk contact point. We are still awaiting for the results. We think that to be an EuroDesk point will complete the commitment we carry on in the frame of local democracy, active citizenship, consultative democracy and inclusive policies we are building at local level in the frame of the opportunities developed by the Council of Europe and the Congress of Local Authorities and Regional Powers. The ESC program will be also a great occasion to promote new youth- projects in the frame of Edremit Municipality partner cities agreements: Kamp-Erdenet ( Mongolia), Kamp-Lintfort (Germany), Nicolosi (Italy) and Srebrenik (Bosnia Herzegovina). During the visits of those cities delegations, our project office is committed to organization, guiding and helping with translation support foreign guests. Furthermore new Partner City collaborations with Lesvos and Chania in Greece and Castro in Italy are in the progress. The main planned activities are as follows: • To establish job opportunities for economically disadvantaged people or NEETs; • To promote the visibility of the archaeological site of Antandros and the National Park of Ida Mountain; • To disseminate Edremit as a touristic and historical destination; • To conduct effective seminars and conferences at suitable times; • To accomplish exchange programs of Erasmus+ and Strategic partnerships; • To organize vocational training courses in various topics and activities for women and children; • Projects for disabled people; • To organise seminars, meetings and conferences to develop capacity building and decision making process of youth, women and children in a European dimension; • to support and to foster Common activities with NGOs in Edremit; • To organize various sportive activities around the city; Along with these projects Edremit Municipality will focus on supporting youth and youth projects for the dissemination of volunteerism values , helping to create a peaceful and pa