Vienna – Education and training for young people

© Brigitte Gradwohl

Vienna is investing €17 million to help out the more than 16,000 young people currently without a job. The package includes intra-company vocational training, qualification passports, assistance for catching up the missed time and offers to enter into professions in health, care and IT, dedicated to the young generation.

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Espoo – Digital youth work

The youth centre activities of the Finnish city of Espoo went online during the corona lockdown. Young people are meeting on digital platforms like Discord to chat or play games, they share images via Instagram and organise online events like cooking together. With more than 400 young people participating, Espoo wants to continue the digital youth work in autumn when the youth centres are open again. You can read more here

Contact: Annika Forstén

Ljubljana – Overview of measures

Ljubljana is increasing its offer to all age groups; from working with volunteers to keep the elderly company and offering free counselling via telephone; to digital services for the young and
telemedicine by telephone or other telecommunication means introduced for all.

Further measures adopted by the city include providing additional space for the homeless and working with volunteers from Ljubljana’s firefighter association and members of Ljubljana’s mountain rescue association and civil protection on public communication. Read more here

Contact: Polona Novak

Ljubljana – Expansion of library services

Ljubljana’s city library is offering a postal service for students and high schoolers seeking study material. This is further facilitated by a wide array of online material, including films and documentaries, and an easy remote registration.

For children and their parents as activities include listening to or reading fairy tales, taking quizzes, drawing and solving riddles. Videos of past cultural events are also available on the library’s YouTube channel.

Contact: Polona Novak

Cardiff – Young carers’ support

Cardiff is supporting young carers who have to look after a relative with a disability, illness, mental health condition or drug or alcohol problem. Young carers can reach out through WhatsApp group chats, and they can access daily updates and activities to engage with their relatives at home. These include live video chats, workshops and educational videos, as well as information about other support services. Read more here

Contact: Beverley Watson

Cardiff – For its youth

Cardiff has developed a website to support children and young people with emotional and mental health and wellbeing issues in this difficult and challenging time. The city also launched ‘The ‘Diff Diaries’, a platform giving youngsters and children the opportunity to document their activity, thoughts and feelings during the global pandemic by submitting video recordings, photo collages or written diary entries. Music education has also gone digital as Cardiff delivers music tuition, one to one lessons and rehearsals opportunities online. Read more here, here and here

Contact: Beverley Watson

Bilbao – Work in progress


Some of the actions undertaken by the city of Bilbao include its ‘adopt a shop’ initiative, whereby small retailers can sell vouchers to people, to earn some income now, in exchange for goods when they are later able to open. Other measures include a programme of online leisure activities for young people and an interactive map showing which shops are currently open. Read more here

Contact: Alazne Zugazaga

Espoo – Reallocation for food assistance

The City of Espoo has reassigned employees from places like libraries and early childhood education into efforts to distribute food. One part of the city’s refocused efforts in this area includes the provision of lunch packages distributed once a week to children currently studying at home. Read more here and here

Contact: Annika Forstén

Edinburgh – Get stuck in when you’re stuck at home

From ‘Mummy Bubble’ to ‘Cosmic Kids Yoga’ – a series of fun and free online activities to keep residents of all ages active and busy during the coronavirus lockdown has been devised by one of Edinburgh’s Schools and Lifelong Learning officers. Callum Mcleod and colleagues came up with the idea of putting together activity packs for children, young people and families to use at home to keep them physically and mentally active during the lockdown. Read more here

Contact: Karen Lloyd

Cardiff – Pre-school support for families

The Cardiff based organisation Flying Start has gone online to continue delivering services to pre-school children and their parents. Appointments, group parenting as well as health and therapy services have all been moved online. While ‘Stay and Play’ sessions have been replaced by a range of fun activities to do with children shared on social media. Read more here

Contact: Beverley Watson

Stuttgart – Art for hope

Stuttgart is helping to keep its youth entertained and hopeful through art. An Easter painting competition for three age brackets below 14, and one over, is being held by the city. Read more (in German) here.

The city is also collecting rainbow pictures drawn by children, following the trend of children drawing rainbows and putting them up in their family windows by asking children to also draw rainbows for the windows of the Town Hall. Read more (in German) here.

Contact: Claudia Schulcz

Nice – Dance and music

Nice is supporting its Conservatory in giving effective lessons. The dance department offers courses in fitness, ballet history and anatomy, the creation of a chamber ballet, and the exchange of videos of international ballets. The Music department has created a youtube channel for students on the alert. It also offers video exchanges, daily tutorials and skype lessons. Finally, the Theater department has set up a discussion forum. It also offers remote debates on shows, or even video exchanges. Read more (in French) in the attached press release.

Contact: Jérôme Sieurin

Zaragoza – Support for young, old and victims of gender violence

Zaragoza is combating the mental health issues that can emerge among infants and youths from confinement with a team of specialized youth professionals from the municipal services. The service is free and can be reached by phone and e-mail. Read more (in Spanish) here.

The city is also offering support to over-65s with a daily cooked meal to be delivered to their homes in collaboration with non-profit La Caridad. Those interested can register by phone.

Zaragoza is also assisting victims of gender violence through its services at ‘La Casa de la Mujer’ along with a 24-hour emergency telephone number and a campaign so that the neighbors get involved in cases of gender violence, and bring them to the attention of the authorities. More information (in Spanish) here.

Contact: Lorena Calvo

Leipzig – Hotline for families

To support families in the current situation, the City of Leipzig has set up a phone hotline, available from 8am – 6pm, 7 days a week. Experienced personnel from the fields of childcare, school social work and youth work answer questions ranging from how to keep children occupied to Corona-related rules affecting families. They also provide educational counselling. The goal is to offer low-threshold support to families in a time of restricted social contacts. Read more here

Contact: Christin Rettke

Bamberg – Online education

Bamberg – educational resources on the internet

While schools are temporarily closed, Bamberg has established an online platform that contains exercises and working materials for students. These materials serve a dual function, as they also relate to Bamberg’s cultural heritage. Read more (in German) here.

Contact: Patricia Alberth

Tallinn – School lunch continues

Students of Tallinn’s schools will be able to continue to get a daily free school lunch under a special arrangement approved by the city’s authorities. Normally, school lunch is free in Tallinn for the students, but due to the emergency situation all schools are closed in Estonia. As for some children  the school lunch is the only hot meal during the day, the Tallinn has decided to continue to make free school lunches available to students who need it.

Schools will inform families about the availability of a free meal and where the students can get it via the eKool (e-School) online environment and the schools’ web pages. To start getting free school lunches, the family must inform the school, as the number of meals prepared will depend on the number of those who wish to get them.

“Since for some children the school lunch is the only hot meal of the day, we do not consider it possible to deprive the children of it. Therefore the Tallinn crisis committee decided to arrange for the provision of hot school meals for the children in need of help,” Deputy Mayor Vadim Belobrovtsev said. “The most important thing in the current situation is caring, and for aid to reach the children who need it most,” the deputy mayor said, urging schools and families to work together on this. Read more (in Estonian) here.

Contact: Kerttu Märtin