Town and regional twinning as foundation of the FGYO

One reason town twinning is so important for the FGYO is that it reaches all people. Regardless of where a person lives, their transport connections, educational history or talents, these exchange projects are open to everyone. Particularly if a young person has never been able to have an experience abroad, town-twinning arrangements often offer a first opportunity for mobility. They promote the integration of new citizens in the region and foster the formation of long-standing friendly relations.

Town and regional twinning takes on special importance during times of crisis. It is often through town twinning that aid can be organised particularly quickly, easily and unbureaucratically in emergency situations.

Exchange has an increasingly important role to play in regional and town twinning. This has long involved more than simply getting to know each other or appraising their shared history. Instead, participants discuss current challenges and learn from each other about logistics, transport or sustainability. This is how these partnerships make concrete contributions to the transfer of knowledge and to augmenting the quality of life in both countries.

In the coming years, the FGYO wants to promote more children’s encounters and do more to support extracurricular children’s language courses in the municipalities. An effort will also be made to promote additional encounters with communities in Eastern Germany. The quality of the encounters will increase as well.

The project idea also plays an increasingly important role in the encounters. The topics of political education and intercultural learning in particular, but also Europe and democracy, are gaining in importance. The FGYO wants to motivate young people to get even more actively involved. This goal can be implemented at the regional and town levels in particular, as exchanges carried out at these levels are particularly low-threshold.