The Assembly of European Regions (AER) is offering you the chance of becoming one of AER‘s Regional Reporters. You can be heard on radio stations across Europe thanks to the radio programme “Europe and you”, which is aired on several French-speaking local radio stations in Europe and on the website (http://www.europeandyou.eu).

AER and “Europe and you” are inviting young people from the European regions to prepare short voice-recordings about themselves, their regions and Europe, to be broadcast on radio and the website during the “Europe and you” programme from April to June 2009.

Who is an AER Regional Reporter?

This is a young person, aged 18 to 30 years old, active in your region or involved in AER youth activities such as the Youth Regional Network or Youth Team, who would like to prepare several short voice-recording presentations on various topics related to Europe.

 Why to participate?

Acting as the Regional Reporter gives you the opportunity to present and share your personal opinions about Europe, to be heard by European citizens across Europe, to learn how to make presentations and how to record them.

If you want to work for media in the future it will be an excellent training for you. But also if you want just to share your view, you have a chance to do this on European level.

Your recordings will be available on the Website of the radio together with your photo. In addition, AER will send the information about your recordings to all AER member regions, i.e. not only radio listeners will know you opinions but also regional policy-makers from all Europe.

How do you choose a topic?

Here are some examples:

• What does Europe mean to you? What does Europe mean to your region?

• Does Europe change the daily life of your family, your surroundings, and your region?

• Are you involved in youth projects in your region? If yes, what is your role?

You can choose another topic, but it should relate to European issues, including your region’s place in Europe. The recording should last not more than 3 minutes and each reporter should prepare at least one recording per month.

How do you prepare your recording?

 Once you choose a topic you should prepare the 3-minute voice presentation as follows:

• the first sentence in your regional language, where you introduce yourself and your region

• the presentation of your topic in English or in French

In addition to your voice-recording, you can add other voices and sounds to make your report more dynamic and interesting.

Recording your voice:

To record your presentation you should have a computer and microphone (simple microphone, such as the ones used for Skype). You should use one of the free open-source programmes which are available on the internet and can be downloaded for free.

Once you install the programme, you are ready to record your voice presentation. Then save your recording in Wave or MP3 format and send it to us.

It will take only a few minutes to record your report and send it to us by email!

How does it work?

The first edition of the project will start on 1 April and will last until June 2009. You should send the registration form and photo that we can put on the Website of the Radio to the AER Secretariat by March 15, 2009 . In the registration form you must commit to preparing a minimum of one recording every month, which should be delivered before the first day of each month.