On 22 October 2022, the B2-InF project consortium gathered in Brussels to meet a large sample of young people aged 18-30 from the eight researched countries (Spain, Italy, Albania, Switzerland, North Macedonia, Belgium and Kosovo).
The event began with a brief introductive discourse about the purpose and goals of the project and a program presentation of the workshop’s goals. The youngsters were divided into groups according to their nationality and sent to separate rooms for their workshop session.
Each group read the B2-InF guidelines draft and shared their opinion about it. It was clear that according to nationality, the realities that individuals knew were very different, sometimes with incredibly significant discrepancies. For example, the government does not provide basic access to primary gynaecologist services in Macedonia. This fact was included in the guidelines for Macedonia, as it is fundamentally crucial.
Most feedback aimed to improve the language for transparency and complete understanding. In the end, the conclusions reached by each group were presented to the entirety of the guests and consortium, followed by a lively and rich discussion.
This was a fantastic opportunity to validate our guidelines and participate in an international and intercultural discussion about important topics within the fertility field and understand the opinions of the young population regarding it.
The consortium members present then engaged in a series of internal meetings to discuss how to include the feedback received from the young population in the guidelines and which points were to be highlighted. Each point made was studied under the different perspectives involved in our research: legal, socio-cultural and gender. The meeting concluded with 25 main points of improvement.
