From 12 to 14 May, 70 young high school students from all over Europe gathered in Ragusa, Sicily, to participate in the "Ragusa2023 Regional Session of EYP Italy", an event promoted by the EYP - European Youth Parliament.

The EYP is a European network founded in 1987 with the aim of educating young people in debate, international dialogue and intercultural communication; every year it involves around 30.000 young citizens from over 40 countries. The events organised by the EYP mainly consist of simulating the decision-making process of the European Parliament. The aim of this type of event is to raise young people's awareness of current affairs, to encourage them to deal with global issues in all their complexity, to acquire new knowledge by interacting with experts and to develop skills relevant to democratic participation and understanding the functioning of institutional assemblies.

The event consisted of three phases: Team Building, Committee Work and General Assembly.

The first phase allowed the students to get to know each other, listen to each other and establish principles of cooperation. The young participants were then divided into eight committees, each with a specific topic, and during the Committee Work phase they had the task, guided by facilitators, of developing proposals for the challenges identified by the organising team. The themes chosen for the committees were diverse, including Culture and Education, Human Rights, Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, all aligned with the main session topic chosen for this edition, "The Power of Progress and Innovation". The work of all the committees was presented, discussed and voted on during the final "General Assembly" session.

Svi.Med.-Euromediterranean Center for Sustainable Development, on behalf of the MEDWAYCAP partners, actively supported this event and also took part in the work of one of the committees, the committee on agricultural sustainability and rural development. This was achieved through engaging debates that helped the young participants to focus on the previously identified issues related to the impact of agriculture and the importance of sustainable management of water resources, mainly by sharing the results of the MEDWAYCAP project experience. It was an experience that certainly had an impact on the young participants, as they included a reference to non-conventional water reuse in their resolution. The young students showed interest and sensitivity to environmental issues and sustainable water management, were eager to learn and perfectly capable of cooperating with each other, which bodes well for the future.