The 20th of June 2019 represented an important date for the INTERFACE project. In fact, during this day, in Iceland and specifically in Ljósheimar, Sauðárkrókur, was held the final conference of the project.

The event was organized by the coordinator of the project, IRDI, and saw the participation of more than 20 people and all the project’s staff from the partner organizations. The event was streamed live on social media pages and lasted from 12:00 until 17:00.

After a quick lunch, the final conference was started by Ásthildur Sturludóttir, Mayor in Akureyri, one of the most populated municipalities in Iceland which included two of the Fragile communities in IRDIs’ Fragile communities’ program. She gave her insight about the situation of these communities and about her participation and knowledge of the project.

Then, Kristján Þ. Halldórsson, coordinator of the project itself for IRDI, presented the project with all its outputs, objectives and activities both already conducted and still in progress. This segment, started the presentations of results and activities conducted in each partner’s countries by the consortium’s representants. In order:

Spyridoula A. Papathanasiou for the Aitoliki Development Agency S.A. (Greece)
Emiliano Mungiovino for CESIE (Italy)
Ralitsa Todorova for Tora Consult (Bulgaria)
Angela Sheehan and Fiona Crotty for Tipperary County Council (Ireland)
Stefanía Kristinsdóttir for the Bifrost University (Iceland)

Each representant a partner of the project presented in detail all the activities conducted including the research phase of the project and the piloting activities as well as the community workshops realized during INTERFACE.

Then, Emiliano Mungiovino from CESIE also presented the online platform of the project, a tool that was used and will continue to be used as for a storage of all the knowledge developed during INTERFACE as well as a tool able to let the coaches involved in the project to be connected and able to share their experiences.

After the coffee break, coaches and people involved in the project activities in Iceland told their stories from their Fragile Communities, in particular:

Skúli Gautason, project leader in Árneshreppur Fragile community program;
Óttar Már Kárason, a coach and an entrepreneur in Borgarfjörður eystri.

This segment was really interesting and gave the participant a real and concrete overview of what were the status of these communities and the work conducted with them thanks to INTERFACE. The results obtained and conclusions of the project are gathered in the Policy Impact Assessment Report which was introduced by Kári Joensen (Bifrost University) right after.

To conclude the day, a panel discussion was organized featuring the project’s partners and the local coaches. They answered the questions of the interested public and gave their final thoughts on the project, societies involved and the status of fragile communities across Europe.