Introducing our new IVY Reporters

In June, we welcomed two IVY reporters to the Channel programme team. Alessia Baratto and Laurence Moureh-Ledig, join us for 4 months as part of the EU’s IVY volunteer scheme, aimed at supporting cooperation across regions and empowering young people through civic engagement.

Find out more about our two new IVY reporters in their own words below.

Alessia Baratto

I am Alessia Baratto, an Italian student of European and International studies at the University of Trento and this month I have started volunteering as IVY reporter for the Interreg VA France (Channel) England Programme.

After graduating in Political Science at the University of Padua, I chose to continue my career in International Relations, with a particular focus on the study of the European Union, and I am very much interested in understanding the impact of European funding programmes for regional cohesion. Volunteering at Interreg FCE represents a fantastic opportunity to discover how the EU contributes to fostering cross-border cooperation projects, improving the lives of citizens living in the Channel area. Passionate about sustainability, I am aware of the crucial role that Interreg funding programmes have in boosting innovative and sustainable ideas, and I am looking forward to knowing more about their impact.

In the next four months, I will be part of the Communication Team and I will help to disseminate values and outcomes of the Interreg FCE programme and its projects, and support with internal communication. I will have the chance to improve a wide range of skills and gain new ones and, at the same time, I will discover characteristics and resources of a specific territory, the Channel area, which I never had the chance to explore throughout my studies. 

Due to the current pandemic, I am volunteering from Italy and despite this, I received a very warm welcome. In the Interreg FCE team I am enjoying a wonderful virtual working environment, where I constantly interact with an international team, and where I have the chance to practice my language skills both in English and French. Everyone is happy to share their knowledge and their cultural background with me and to give useful advice, for which I am very grateful. Moreover, I am sharing this Interreg experience with Laurence, a French IVY reporter and a fantastic working partner.

I am grateful and excited about this new experience within the Interreg FCE community and glad to have discovered Interreg Volunteer Youth opportunities. I look forward to learning more and helping to support cross-border cooperation between the UK and France.

Laurence Moureh-Ledig

My name is Laurence Moureh-Ledig and it is with great enthusiasm that I am joining the Interreg France (Channel) England Programme as an Interreg Volunteer Youth Reporter from France to help communicate and report about the achievements of the many projects funded by the Programme and implemented in the Channel area.

Through reporting the tangible and valuable outputs of those projects and showing how they are concretely improving people’s lives and empowering communities in the Channel regions of France and England, our goal is to increase the visibility of the Programme and raise general awareness of the many benefits of cross border cooperation and solidarity in the European Union and between France and the UK in particular.

My studies in International Affairs in France and Canada gave me a glimpse of the power that cooperation holds in order to provide shared, and therefore more effective solutions to common issues,  but it was truly during my internships in the field of cultural cooperation in England and Germany that I was really able to grasp how fundamental collaboration and the exchange of ideas, views and knowledge is in order to foster progress and growth, build bridges between communities and contribute to peace and resilience.

As a young European citizen convinced of the essential role played by territorial cooperation to boost overall economic and social development and reduce regional disparities in order to build a more equal, fair and strong Europe, I am grateful to be able to contribute at my level to the construction of a more cohesive European Union. This experience will be extremely valuable and formative as it will give me the opportunity to discover from the inside and understand more about the functioning of one of the instruments used by the European Union to implement its cohesion policy on the ground, but also to develop useful communications skills and strengthen my sense of European solidarity and citizenship.

Finally, being able to work in an international environment with such a welcoming and available team as well as with Alessia, my inspiring and supportive Italian partner in this IVY adventure, is making this experience even more stimulating.

More information

• Interreg Volunteer Youth (IVY) website