Prof. Cliff Hague from the Heriot-Watt University presented this article in the british magazine "Planning" the 11 June 2004. He is telling about observations during the PIPE expo in Ulricehamn in Sweden, and have many interesting reflections like "There are future leaders among these kids".

This speech was given at the PIPE EXPO 7 May 2004. Mr. Arne Øren is the president of the Østfold county council. Østfold is acting as the Lead Partner of the PIPE consortium. "Democracy is a challenging form of government. It demands tolerance and openness, active participation and cooperation."

Professor Cliff Hague argued last time we were together, in Türi, that the PIPE-project deals with the periphery of the periphery; the less-developed regions of Northern Europe.

As we have seen and will see during this Expo, PIPE also deals with participation and identity.

These will be the components of the next ten minutes in my summary of the PIPE-project; Participation, Identity and the Periphery.

Dear mayors and chairmen, official representatives, ladies and gentlemen.

I am very proud to be here today and give my presentation to this large and very qualified audience. Especially I am happy to meet all my young friends and I look forward to be among you during these days here in this beautiful part of Sweden.

To watch your local projects and your youth enterprises will be a nice experience for all of us. The idea behind this EXPO was to use this event as a momentum which could trigger off local actions, new ideas and energy among young people in co-operation with schools, experts and local and regional authorities.

Mindaugas Budra won the second prise for "most outstanding contribution" in the PIPE project. According to the Jury: "He has been one of the key persons at the international events, even from the very beginning. He already was a natural leader before PIPE started, but he has developed his skills and is an outstanding example of other youths and adults about community spirit. He has presented the PIPE project in the local council and has been an active contributor to dissemination of PIPE by the use of the PIPE website and local media." Mindaugas was glad to answer some questions regarding award and PIPE project

In all participating countries reportages have been produced from the PIPE EXPO and about the various local projects. Here are some of the press reportages which have been published about PIPE in Norwegian media.

The Pipe Methodology guidelines, based on inputs from the Rovaniemi workshop in November 2002 and from the Notodden (Telemark) workshop in October 2003, is being finalized.

94% of all participants wants to continue the PIPE project in some way or another. This is only one of the feedback results from the survey carried out by sociologists in Vilnius. Approximately 200 students, teachers and officials have responded to the questionnaire. Viktoria Zilinskaite and Eugenija Krukauskiene have analysed the results. Their report was presented by Viktorija Zilinskaite at the methodological workshop during the PIPE EXPO in Ulricehamn last week.

This is only a preliminary small part of the upcoming picture gallery which will contain a huge amount of picture and videos. After some days all will be published. http://qrm.pri.ee/toalf/

During PIPE EXPO a wonderful project were presented by PIPE culture group from Alytus, Lithuania. It was called "Lithuanian girl". Many participants and guests of the EXPO had a possibility to take pictures acting as a girl from Lithuania. Look, maybe you find yourself!!!