by the Development Centre of Võru County
On 29-30th March, EUARENAS partners visited out pilot region of Võru County. During these two days, participants had the opportunity to get to know the whole county, its cultural particularities, visit the smoke sauna, learn about the child-friendly image of Võru and talk about Võru language developments at the Võru Institute.
(credit: Lota Vana)
The meeting started with a brief overview of the activities of the cities in the framework of the project. Tiit Toots, member of the management board of the Development Centre of Võru County, introduced the county and the activities of the development centre. According to Toots, the EUARENAS project is important for the county and strengthens the cooperation between the regions, which are very different but have a lot to learn from each other. "We have many common goals, such as developing local entrepreneurship and making policies more sustainable, which provides a good basis for cooperation and helps to create a strong support network for all of us". For example, the longer discussion topic that everybody was interested in was education and during all the meeting, participants tried to understand better how the municipalities in different regions work.
Pictured: Introduction by Tiit Toots - member of the management board of the Development Centre of Võru County, the EUARENAS team, site visits around Võru (credit: Lota Vana)
Then teams headed to the round tables, where experiences were exchanged using the world cafe method, and the day was concluded with thoughts on how to do it even more efficiently in the future. At the end of the day, everyone could enjoy traditional Estonian sauna rituals in a smoke sauna.
On the second day, the focus was on pilot project analysis processes and the necessary toolbox for this. In addition, a visit to the Võru city government was made, where the Deputy Mayor of Võru, Sixten Sild, gave a presentation about city of Võru.
Võru County´s guests from Hungary, Italy, Poland, Germany and Finland were very satisfied and their words of thanks were warm and heartfelt. Everyone also received a gift with local flavours of Võru County.