With these needs in mind, we established several objectives and specified that the young members themselves would lead the change of our musical entities, since due to several consultations carried out in 2020 and 2021 we realized that our needs and those of our young members were practically the same, so we decided to address them together in a project that would improve their skills and abilities, at the same as it improved and strengthened our associations, working towards the following 5 goals: ‒ Improving our digitalization both in the management of entities and in musical training. ‒ Being more inclusive, open to diversity, and promoting equal opportunities. ‒ Being more egalitarian by boosting our gender policies. ‒ Being more sustainable, implementing environmentally friendly policies. ‒ Being more active and participatory in the development of our communities. These objectives are also in line with the priorities of the Erasmus+ Programme (social inclusion of youth, improvement of work processes in the field of youth, and promoting the digitalization of our entities and youth), as well as those of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.
The idea for this project arose during the COVID-19 pandemic, when musical associations had to close and young people were isolated, demanding services adapted to this new reality so that the most vulnerable were not left behind. We realized that our entities had to adapt to the new context, not only improving their structure and promoting inclusion within them, but also becoming pillars where young people, broken by the pandemic, could hold on. We had very little digital practices, very focused on our own partners and on music as the only common thread. We had focused on our musical goals and our local community, forgetting about our ability to be important drivers of youth inclusion and social reconstruction after the pandemic in Europe. We could see the young people around us lost, in need of the support and enthusiasm that we could provide with our music. Our organizations had to change not only because otherwise they would disappear or become irrelevant in a society that was increasingly becoming more digital and supportive, but because we really are necessary and will be so in the years to come.