Mons 2015 is first and foremost a project for young people. So that this experience gives them reason to believe in a solid future, so that they seize training and staff development opportunities, so that the development of the city and the region is synonymous with their life plan.

Making way for young people and making the 2015 event fully accessible to them, is not just about creating the audience of tomorrow but about becoming aware of the social, human, philosophical and technical values that living art conveys at the start of the 21st century. And to share it with them.

We have symbolically chosen to follow an age group up to 2015; the thousand young students in Mons who will be 20 in 2015.

We are promising to follow them up to that time, whatever school, geographical and family issues they encounter in the future.
How? By each year offering them a series of special pedagogical, recreational activities which will generate among them a real feeling of ownership of this European year of Culture.
For example: an email address dedicated to Mons 2015, an intensive private course in Dutch language, an introduction to "slam", photo competitions, an interactive TV network...
And of course access to all the communication technologies guaranteed through a partnership with Microsoft who is backing the whole operation.
All these activities have also in common the capacity to constitute a vehicle for exchange with other young people of the same age in partner or other cities, European Capitals of Culture past or future. It is clear that these young people already constitute a formidable network of active ambassadors within their families, associations and leisure groups, a network which will be developed over the years.
And in 2015, we will find them at the heart of the action, occupying a strategic place in the fields of reception, arbitration and leadership.