What was special in this Network Meeting?

There are several answers. Anna Koyovych from AEGEE-Kyiv, one of the participants, expresses her viewpoint like this: “NWM Brno was well organised, with interesting and useful thematic workshop blocks. I really liked that NWM Brno was for already experienced members, so we did not have to start all the discussions from the beginning and from the basics of AEGEE. Also, it was a good thing that the NWM was based on discussions, not only on the trainers speaking, we had the opportunity to express our visions, to share our ideas with others. We had the opportunity to present our antenna, to tell about our activities and to get to know more about others. The atmosphere was really friendly and we felt free to talk about topics we are interested in.”

Communication 2.0

The fact that the NWM had a website was also peculiar for such a short event.

Veronika Gombárová, President of AEGEE-Brno, explains that the idea of having a website came from their Network Commissioner (NetCommie) Pavel Zbornik, but all active members cooperated on the final look of that website, supporting Michal Veselý, the IT responsible, who was also in charge of the website.

The website was very helpful both for the team and the participants; the lattest could find all needed information in one place, while the antenna benefited in terms of marketing. In fact, “it was a lot easier to make the event more visible thanks to sharing the link to the webpage, where everyone could find the main info, rather than to write long messages which not everyone has time to read,” adds Veronika. The result was 26 happy participants from 9 different countries, to which we should add Beáta Matuszka, Guillermo Garcìa Tabarés and Pavel Zbornik, who were there as trainers.

Fun and learning mission: possible!

The program included, apart from a “standard” workshop like Human Resources and the musts-of-the-year Erasmus for All and Action Agenda Implementation, an explanation of the proposal for the upcoming Agora and an original workshop on ice breaking games and team building activities for SUs.

In fact, Summer University is a regular event which AEGEE-Brno organizes every year and every time with one or more antennae. Veronika provides more details about their partners: once the other two Czech antennae (AEGEE-Praha and AEGEE-Plzen), once AEGEE-Bratislava and last year AEGEE-Budapest for the SU called AEGEE of Empires, which won the award for the most creative title of an AEGEE event.

“This year our partner is again one of the Czech antennae, AEGEE-Plzen. Together we make “Czech Mission: Possible!” where first aid and survival courses will be the main focus. We also want to fill our SU with sports and adventure (like kart racing, paintball and rafting). Every year, the SU is the most important and biggest event in AEGEE-Brno, so we try hard to make everything perfect.”, explains Veronika. And thanks to the ice breaking games workshop from the Network Meeting, they will also have a successful kick-off for the event!

Local organisers were not the only ones to appreciate these practical activities. Anna, the interviewed participant, tells us: “I can long talk about our activities in the workshops, but I will only say that I left NWM Brno with a new portion of motivation and knowledge, and I wish to keep on working in AEGEE and to bring to my local new ideas which popped into my head during this NWM.”

Long-lasting relations and future perspectives

If the reader is not yet convinced about the potential of this antenna, he should read the opinion of Nadia Schneider from AEGEE-Berlin, who participated in their New Year’s Event some time ago, but still remembers that “Their team is great! Even though their antenna is not among the biggest, the organisation of the whole event was at the highest level – all parts of the social program were well combined, so the participants were neither tired from it, nor bored because of too much free time. Everyone from AEGEE-Brno was at our disposal, to provide all possible assistance with our questions or issues at any time. All this would not have been possible, I think, without them being a real family as they are! They are all close friends, but at the same time they always welcome anyone who wants to join their team!”.

Are you convinced enough? Then you can join one of their future activities! In fact, they are planning to organise other serious events, such as European Schools, as well. Further future goals are to continue cooperating with the local university, to improve fundraising, to expand the number of members, especially active ones, and to start regular Local Training Courses. “We haven’t organised any so far, but it is really important to educate our members about AEGEE and all the possibilities it offers. I feel like right now, with the members we have at the moment, it is the time for us to do big things!”. These are the last considerations of Veronika, before congratulating her and her teammates for the amazing job they have done and thanking them.

The AEGEEan praises this spirit and wishes AEGEE-Brno to realise all their future goals!

Written by Martina Zanero, AEGEE-Torino

After the results were revealed, hugs were exchanged among the 700 participants, and most participants rushed to dinner, in order to be able to rush to the gym to shower and prepare for European Night. A European Night that will be remembered for many things, but for the Spanish participants the brightest memory of that night will be the outdoor party they managed to start.

Too little too late

Rumors have been going around that the Spaniards were denied access to the club which led to them starting the above mentioned party. There is some truth in that but also some things that need to be clarified. Alvaro Espinosa, who was one of the participants in the outdoor party, and one of the representatives of the Spaniards helped us clarify the situation. He was among the ones who believed that scheduling the European Night on the last night of the Agora should not be repeated. It is common that the last day is long: long plenaries, plenty of celebration of the results, and combining that with having to rush to dinner, shower and party is in some people’s opinion not a good combination. However, that is what happened. The last plenary ended at around 21 or 21.30 and then the preparations for the party started. After preparing for the party, the Spaniards left the gym to enter the club, at 23.00 o’ clock instead of 22.00 which had been announced. They were then told that they could not enter the club with the 10+ liter of Sangria that they had brought because there was no more space for alcohol inside.

Never denied access

It is important to stress that the participants were of course never denied access to the party; they were simply told that they could not enter the party with the amounts of alcohol that they had brought so they had to leave it outside. In order not to throw it away, they started the party outside. Nice music from the ongoing festival next to the club provided a great atmosphere, and soon the Spaniards were joined by German and Polish representatives who could not enter with their alcohol either. After a little while the clubbers heard about the sangria and joined the outdoor party creating an “extra” European Night outside with participants from Finland, Denmark, Spain, Macedonia, Poland, Germany, Greece, Turkey and much more.

A Split European Night

So despite managing to have fun outside the European Night, this did create issues for the participants of the Agora. As Alvaro Espinosa answered to the question regarding whether or not the organisation prevented him from enjoying the European Night: “Well, I missed half of the party so yes, it could have been better if everybody were able to bring their drinks inside the club. In addition, that night was really cold so people there really tried hard to make a good party. The point is that the organisation has to plan these kind of things, you cannot do this when people already bought and brought all the drinks from their countries. We had a fantastic night, but you cannot split people and leave some outside the club. Even if they did not deny access, it was obvious that people were not going to leave their drinks outside and go inside – that would not be a real European Night if half of the people tried to introduce their countries without their products.”

Hard to find a place for European Night

Anybody who has previously organised an event probably knows that finding a club to host it, allowing people to use the space of the club, asking to get specific music played and even bringing alcohol on their own is a difficult task. The organisers of the Agora found “Vesting Bar”, or VB in short. The owner of VB agreed for European Night to be organised at this place, but of course there were conditions. The first was that he required the organisers to try to limit the amount of alcoholic drinks brought by the participants. The second was that the participants’ alcoholic drinks should be removed by 23:30. Both make good sense if one were to see things from the perspective of the VB owner.

The participants already knew

One of the organisers Bart Koornwinder explained that he and the rest of the organising team felt that they did everything they could to very clearly communicate these limitations towards the participants. It was first pronounced at the closing plenary. Later in the gyms the intercom was taken in use, stressing that all the participants including German, Polish and Spaniards were aware of the limitations of that evening. When explaining what happened with this particular situation Bart says this: “Until 23:00 we were very lenient with the amount of alcoholic drinks brought in. Only after 23:15 participants with alcohol on them were denied access. This was because the owner of the VB told us to do so. The reason is that these participants were extremely late and were carrying shopping bags full of alcoholic drinks. They broke both ‘rules’; they had too much alcohol on them, and they would never be capable to drink everything within the given time.”

At the same time when that was happening, the organising team started cleaning up the European Night. No drinks were confiscated but instead the organisers helped the participants decant their drinks into plastics cups. This way they could finish their drink, without the VB’s employees knowing.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

Each one of these locals is too small and has too few members to ever host an Agora by themselves, even if they wanted it so much. So, they tried to find out how they could make their dream come true by still providing the needed manpower. The solution seemed simple: “Let’s do it together!” With this idea they actually created a new concept for the organisation of the Agora.

If you are curious now about who these people are and how they can work together you should read the following interview:

1. Why did you decide to apply for hosting the Spring Agora 2013?

Sebastian (AEGEE-Heidelberg): We have a great potential in this region. Our locals are quite different one from another, but we all have highly motivated members and we believe it is the perfect moment to meet this challenge.

Alexandra (AEGEE-Heidelberg): We (AEGEE Heidelberg) have a strong antenna at the moment, we have a lot of very motivated members and we considered this the best possible moment to organise an Agora. We thought that if we don’t do it now we might never find a better opportunity and a more appropriate time. However, while our human resources are at a peak, the logistical possibilities in Heidelberg are less than ideal for such a major event as the Agora. For this reason, we slowly came up with the idea of organizing a Rhein-Neckar-Agora with our neighboring AEGEE locals and to merge the advantages of each one of the locals into an optimal Agora organisation.

Benjamin (AEGEE-Mainz-Wiesbaden): When I was at my first Agora in Istanbul one and a half years ago, I just knew that I wanted to contribute to such an event. Unfortunately our local is too small and also the facilities in Mainz are not capable of hosting an Agora. When Alexander Sieber (AEGEE-Kaiserslautern) came to me with the idea of a regional Agora, I was totally psyched. The fact of finally being able to host an Agora was just amazing.

2. How will you all work together, when you are from different locals and different cities?

Sebastian: All locals in the Rhein-Neckar-area are less than one hour away, Heidelberg and Mannheim only about 15 minutes. We already have regular institutionalised regional meetings and they will get even more frequent from now on. We will also prepare for the Agora project by a special Regional Training Course which will focus on conference management and we will have at least one team building seminar for the core team.

Benjamin: It is a lot easier than people might think. For everything that can be organised without meeting, we have the world wide web to help us. With e-mail, Skype meetings and cloud sharing it got really easy to share information. Of course not everything is doable through internet, but despite us being seven different locals, that does not mean we cannot meet up often. Our region and all our antennae are really close. You can travel easily by train or car, and as a student you do not have to pay much to use the regional trains.

3. Can you tell The AEGEEan when did you come up with the idea to host an Agora?

Sebastian: The idea was born in autumn 2011. Alexander Sieber asked me what I would think about applying for hosting the Spring Agora 2013 in our region, and from this very second I knew we would do it!

Alexandra: To be honest, I don’t even remember exactly when the idea became concrete. After the Autumn Agora in Skopje we began thinking about how great it would be if we could organize an Agora of our own in Heidelberg in the near future. From this initial wishful thinking, the idea slowly began to form and we started coming up with more and more solid plans.

Benjamin: I think that the idea of a regional Agora was nothing like a funny idea that became somehow real. Our region became more connected a couple of years ago. We meet each other, invite each other to events, travel together to statutory events and so on. I think the Spring Agora Rhine-Neckar is just a big step that developed of our regional community. The concept of antennae working together to create something big is nothing new in AEGEE and not in our region, as there are often three or four locals organising a Summer University together. That is why I think the statutory meetings don’t have to be the exception to this concept.

4. Please tell us something about the team. 

5. What is your region in Germany well-known for?

Alexandra: The Rhein-Neckar region is considered a metropolitan region in south western Germany. It is well-known for it’s picturesque areas around the valleys of the rivers Rhein and Neckar and it includes internationally renowned tourist destinations such as Heidelberg and Worms, as well as UNESCO World Heritage sites like the ancient cities of Speyer and Lorsch. In additon, thanks to its bland climate, the Rhein-Neckar region is famous for wine-growing and it is furthermore considered an indispensable German industrial area with prestigious companies like BASF, John Deer and SAP. Moreover, the proximity to the international airport in Frankfurt makes our region easily accessible and well travelled.

Benjamin: The most popular product would be wine, but that is not all. Our region has a big cultural heritage. From cities that were build 2000 years ago, like Mainz, to cities that were cultural centers in the medieval times, like Heidelberg, we have a big part of German and European history just on our doorstep.

6. Give me 10 reasons why AEGEEans should attend your Agora.

Clarifying priorities and expectations

The workshop started with a discussion about the priorities of organisers and the expectations of participants in regards to an event. Marit Veeber from the EVC was very happy to see that everyone agreed upon the content being the organisers’ top priority, but it was also agreed that different participants come to the event with different expectations, and whilst the content part may be the most important for some, others come for company and the social programme.

Do’s and Don’ts

Then the topic was changed to giving tips and tricks, and the participants of the workshop came up with following pieces of advice:

•  Have clear task division among your team!

• Have a set time frame of all the things that need to be done during (and also after and before the event) – make sure that all members of the team are aware of this and stick to it

• Leave time buffers that are long enough between activities

• Make sure that the participants know whom to turn to when they get lost

• Double check everything

This last tip was mentioned during the second part of the workshop: risk management in event organisation. Then the discussion was continued with considering different things that could go wrong during an event and how recognising and addressing some possible issues before they arise (using common sense, of course) can help the organisers be much less stressed during the event itself.

Here are some suggestions

• If the event is dependent on some sort of outside factor which one cannot influence (e.g., the weather), it is always advisable to have an alternative activity which could be the replacement in case everything does not go according to plan (e.g., raining cats and dogs could ruin the prospects of a beach party)

• Inform the participants to bring their European Health Insurance Cards to the event, advise them to get travel insurance and know where the nearest hospital is

• Main organisers should also think about themselves and from the very beginning have a right hand person who also has all the info about the event so that the team has someone to turn to in case the main organiser, for some reason, is unable to perform their duties (e.g. illness, exams, travelling before the event etc.)

• while planning the budget, leave about 10% for unforeseen expenses – and also think about how this money is spent if non-necessary for emergencies (otherwise one might be asked to give it back).

Written by Marit Veeber, AEGEE-Tartu & Speaker of the Events Committee

Wake up in the morning looking like…

This being my second Agora and yet another AEGEE event to add to the list, I already knew it consisted of waking up early in the morning after just a few hours of sleep. The very first day of the Agora was eventful for me. I started out by hitchhiking from Amsterdam to Enschede with people from the pre-event, then I was overwhelmed with the excitement of seeing familiar faces all over the place, and then getting ready for the first party.

You know you have to wake up early in the morning, right?

All these familiar faces approached me, first of all to catch up, but also to let me know that I had to wake up early in the morning. This was due to the task of being the AEGEE fair manager, which required me to rise and shine at 6 in the morning. After having more people that I can count on my hands reminding me of this, I decided to head back to the gym and sleep. I must have been beyond exhausted because I did not hear at all when people returned to the gym from the party, but little did I know that this exhaustion was nothing compared to what would hit me the forthcoming days and after the Agora.

Registering and picking up ballots

AEGEE-København had prepared me for the task of registering myself, obviously, but also the antenna. That I had already experienced at the EBM so I knew the process of answering questions such as “Who is your Network Commissioner?” “Are you a board member?” “How much is the membership fee of your local?” etc. In addition to that I was to pick up the voting ballots for AEGEE-København, which went smoothly as well.

La gente está muy locaaaaa, what the ****?

In the evening it was time for the roll call. During the day people had been practicing, whispering in the corners with smiles of excitement for being the ones remembered for their roll call at the Agora. However, Agora newbies seemed confused about what was going on. Roll what? And despite the effort of trying to explain what it is, I think it is one of those things that you have to witness before you understand. Being a member of both AEGEE-Madrid and AEGEE-København I situated myself amongst all the Spanish locals. We were getting ready to scream and sing for AEGEE-Madrid but I did not have anything special planned for introducing my Danish local. In lack of guts of doing something extraordinary, alone, in front of 700 AEGEEans, I chose to just stand up, say “present” and smile whenever Yvonne Antonovic called my local. A few locals afterwards it was time for AEGEE-Madrid. One Argentinian girl, one Danish girl and a bunch of Spaniards stood up and started screaming “Yoli, la gente está muy loca,” and I suppose the audience very fittingly thought “What the ****?” but also started cheering along.

“I have never seen the Agora this silent”

However, the cheers, smiles and laughter faded quickly after the announcement of Vote of Confidence by the Comité Directeur. As I recall a person said “I have never seen the Agora this silent,” and it was in fact quite a sight seeing 700 people almost afraid to take a breath in fear of being too loud. Despite being a first-time delegate, I am quite active in AEGEE, so I was lucky to know what the CD is and I have profound knowledge of what they already do in Brussels. However, this was an Agora with so many people, and there were a lot of newbies that had no clue what was going on. This was most definitely visible in the voting session where stress spread amongst the people in the room, questions were raised (some several times) and it was not an easy task for organisers, the Chair Team and the Juridical Commission (JC) to try to control the situation.

No food

The numerous questions, the attempt to describe the voting procedure, the division of boxes ready for the ballots, all this of course took time. Unfortunately for the organisers, it took too much time, which made them unable to serve dinner to the delegates. However, they did make an effort to feed the hungry participants who were looking at colorful papers rather than delicious food. In the end voting was done and the delegates rushed back to the gym getting ready for the party while the Chair Team, JC, and kind vote counters headed off to start calculating who had received the vote of confidence and who had not.

VIP bus to the center

So there was food provided by the organisers to the delegates but they did manage to get a discount on Turkish kebab for the participants at a local place in the city which the delegates reached after taking the VIP (party) bus to the city center of Enschede. People got food, and also smiles after seeing Turkish participants guiding them to the local place, which was a flashback to EBM Izmir to some.

In the end, nobody could have ever prepared me for this Agora. The first two days were only the beginning of an experience that will be a memory of a lifetime for better and for worse.  Some details may be placed in the wrong connection, wrong day, but this only proves how difficult it is to describe what exactly happened because to this date, despite having slept countless hours and regaining energy after the Agora, I still have difficulties answering some of the questions: who, what, why?

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

Pictures courtesy of Léa Charlet, AEGEE-Paris

One of them is ‘organising an event or action where students can get in personal contact with the target minority in order to experience their daily life.’  This objective is about creating more empathy among our members towards people with disabilities. In order to do so you can get in contact with an organisation that represents minorities and ask for ideas to experience their lives and create more understanding. This is what AEGEE-Eskişehir members started to do a few years ago and made an annual event out of this cooperation. Enjoy the article about their ‘Empathy Day’, written by Engin Ergezer, the president of AEGEE-Eskişehir. Feel free to ACT in the same way!

Have you ever thought about a world all dark? What would your life be like if you could not see? AEGEE-Eskişehir thought about it, made researches and the “Empathy Day” was created.

AEGEE-Eskişehir  did an event for the first time named “Disabled Project” in 2010. The following year, in 2011, Active Citizenship Working Group of the local took over the responsibility to organise it. Finally this year, the project will take place again on 19th-20th of May 2012 and will be presented by the Human Rights Working Group.

AEGEE-Eskişehir members

What is the “Empathy Day”?
It is a day AEGEE-Eskişehir gathers their members and people with disabilities together and share. Sharing life experiences, stories about how daily life is going. Having discussions on what kind of developments can make life easier for people with disabilities. In order to do so, the members imagine being in their shoes.

To be able to understand the disabilities the participants try to perform small daily tasks in a completely dark room, such as trying to reach to the sofa without falling, filling an empty cup with water, picking up a book from a shelf and even reading it if possible. Not being able to walk and trying to get from one place to another in wheelchair. Facing some obstacles like pavements that are not well-designed and using public transportation.

All above-mentioned things are hard to imagine. For a visually impaired person it is very normal and not unusual. At that point AEGEE-Eskişehir steps in and tries to show and prove to people that there is no difference between us. That is why AEGEE-Eskişehir is eager to repeat this event every year to create more personal understanding among the members.

Empathy Day 2012

The Empathy Day which is carried out with the support of Anadolu University, Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality, and Tepebaşi Municipality is three years old now and will take place this weekend. As it is each year, the event will be open to public and the goal is to try to help “normal people” get rid of the disabilities that they created themselves. Stay tuned for the outcomes of Empathy Day that will happen in 19-20th May 2012.

Written by Engin Ergezer and Deniz Özhan, AEGEE-Eskişehir & ACT 

I do not even know how to start. I will just say that everything was so good and lovely that it took me some time to come back to everyday reality and write this article. An article about an amazing week spent in Krakow during the EuroArab Project.

An explosive mixture of people

15 people from all over Europe and 15 people from Egypt. As we say in Ukraine -  an explosive mixture. But from the first day till the last minutes of the last day of the project was more than worth it. Maybe the point is that already before the trip we got to know each other quite well. This happened through sharing some songs and social communication online before the event even started.

Feel the magic of Krakow city

This is the magic of Krakow city, or maybe it was just good mood, but Iryna (a fellow participant from Ukraine) and I got out of the bus and already knew that we would love this week.
However, I will not bore you with compliments but will tell you the truth about what was so amazing about this gorgeous week in Krakow.

Lesson about life that will last a life time

As  mentioned above, there were different participants from different countries, moreover different religions and ways of thinking. For any single second I did not feel uncomfortable or bothered by any obstacles. For people who are wondering why I am writing like that, just google prejudice of Ukrainians against Arabic people.
Moreover, I was just wondering how the organisers managed to create such a nice atmosphere. From the first day everybody was friendly, helpful, and what is very important – openhearted. In a moment all my prejudice just disappeared. I learned so many new things about another culture, I was amazed about all the things I did not know before – way of thinking, perception of everyday life, philosophy of life, behavior in the life of Arabic people.

The life of Tommy and Billy

No doubt, communicating with these guys – witnesses of Egyptian revolution – gave us a lot of knowledge and real examples of how it worked in reality, how it was for them to be a part of this power to change their own lives, hopefully for something better. Furthermore, what I really appreciated was the nice atmosphere that made everybody feel comfortable to discuss everything, to voice their opinions, and to argue about some topics. You should have seen us during one workshop about the life situation of two guys: Tommy and Billy. The participants were separated in two teams and there was a story: these two guys are friends. Billy works in a jewelry shop and he owes some money to Tommy. Once Tommy came to shop and stole a golden ring from the shop and now Billy is in trouble because his boss will kill him, but Tommy has a very ill daughter and he needs to take care of her.

One team was supposed to defend Tommy and the other one was defending Billy. What happened was that Tommy’s team was so passionate about his defense that if you ever need a lawyer maybe one of the participants from the EuroArab project could help you out!

Program full of activities

It is impossible not to mention all these interesting and efficient city games, amazing workshops in which we had to investigate the streets of Krakow and then put it into interesting presentations. The Polish dancing workshop made us dance, the lesson of Polish history gave us valuable knowledge, and Polish and Arabic language lessons extended our vocabulary. What I enjoyed a lot was the city quest, apart of my very tired legs. Trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau, although it is hard to speak of, is for sure worth visiting and should be visited.
And then of course there is the social program – jazz cafes, shisha bar, galleries, traditional cuisine, and lovely parties at the hostel.

In the end I have one more remark – everybody wanted to prolong the project. Explosive mixture of these crazy, interesting, so different and so cool people has not yet burst. It is waiting for its chance to do so somewhere in Europe.

Written by Lidiia Akryshora, AEGEE-Kyiv

As you might be aware, the current Youth in Action (which is the Program of EU Commission for 2007-2013) gives a lot of importance to Non Formal Education (NFE), active citizenship and empowerment of young people to take ownership and develop their own projects, which will contribute to the big picture of European Integration. It allows young people to manage and implement their own projects and ideas, as well as supports youth organizations and civil society entities to carry out their work by providing operational grants, like the one we receive every year for AEGEE-Europe.

The Multiannual Financial Framework presented by the European Commission for the new proposal is quite good, because there has been a huge increase in the budget.

However, there are some gaps in the European Commission’s proposal, which are not so good from young people´s point of view, specially for all of us belonging to International Youth NGOs (IYNGOs).

In few words, “E4A” is based on education and training, focusing on formal higher education in order to make young people more employable. The proposal focuses mainly on the needs of the labor market, without mentioning the importance of Non Formal Education for the development of our youth as active citizens, it removes the co-management of young people in the project, and very importantly, it removes the support of operational grants for youth organizations.

If this proposal were approved, it would mean that organizations like AEGEE-Europe would lose almost half of their annual budget, which would damage them and their work and in some cases could even make them disappear.

There is a fear for the Youth sector to disappear under the ERASMUS brand, as there is no clear separate budget line for youth in the proposal.

Here you can find some of the main differences between the two programs:

As you might know, an Advocacy Team has been formed by AEGEE-Europe in order to work on AEGEE’s opinion. AEGEE-Europe stands for an independent program for Youth with a complete separate budget. A program which will still give importance to NFE and empowerment of young Europeans, allowing them to become co-managers and have an impact on the society with their initiatives.

The process goes as following: Now the EU Commission has sent the proposal, so now it is up to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to decide whether this proposal will be accepted. AEGEE-Europe as well as most IYNGOs together with the European Youth Forum are lobbying for an INDEPENDENT YOUTH CHAPTER OR PROGRAM. Check the campaign: http://www.whereareyouthgoing.eu/

The ultimate goal is to convince the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to establish an independent program or chapter inside the current proposal that will continue the values of “Youth in Action,” assuring that young people’s implication in European issues will still be supported, both financially and socially.

So until now, the task of the Advocacy Team has been, together with locals, to contact all the Members of European Parliament (MEPs) of different countries where AEGEE is present. If we convince our national MEPs, they will later on vote for what we want in the Parliament. We were the ones who voted for them to be there. They will listen to us.

What the Advocacy Team would mostly appreciate is more help from everyone who feels that “Youth in Action” needs another chance. Having more volunteers in the Advocacy Team means more countries covered.

Until now we have the following countries covered:

Germany: Kathrin Renner (AEGEE-Passau), Holger Schmitt (AEGEE-Berlin), Max van Bahlen and Stephan Noll (AEGEE-Mannheim).

Czech Republic : Pavel Zbornik (AEGEE-Praha)

France: Lucille Rieux (AEGEE-Toulouse)

Latvia : Diana Ondža (AEGEE-Riga)

The Netherlands: Marleen Dijkhoff (AEGEE-Utrecht)

Romania: Gabriela Motroc and Olimpia Parje (AEGEE-Bucaresti)

Italy: Alfredo Sellitti and Claudia Fiorentino (AEGEE-Europe)

Bulgaria: Diana Yolova and Liliya Buyukliyska (AEGEE-Sofia)

Spain: Luis Alvarado Martínez (AEGEE- Las Palmas),Miguel Gallardo (AEGEE-Alicante) and NetCom team.

Hungary: Réka Salamon (AEGEE-Debrecen)

Greece: Manos Valasis (AEGEE-Peiraias)

What do you have to do after you offer yourself as a volunteer? Basically talk to relevant decision-makers in your country and try to convince them to be on the same boat with us. Their approvals bring us one step closer to having the independent Youth program saved.

Not to mention that your help will give AEGEE the visibility needed to really make a difference in the attempt to save “Youth in Action:” the more we talk about it, the more high-profile we get!

Can you imagine how it would be to have so many people struggling for the same cause?

We do and we want you all in!

This is the time to really fight for what we want! The voice of the Youth in Europe must be heard!

Gabriela Motroc and Luis Alvarado Martinez,

On behalf of the Advocay Team

Written by Luis Alvarado Martinez, AEGEE-Las Palmas

When I was moving into the house, I found two grey rabbits sitting in the garden and looking a little confused. It had just been few days when a major garden-cleaning action had been carried out in the house and that was so efficient that basically no grass was left in the garden. But soon new grass would grow and start an entirely new part of life for these two rabbits. However, let’s move first to the beginning of the story, just a few months earlier around Easter time.

Friends in the garden
Agnes Leyrer and Olga Basova, previous CD members had one day the feeling of celebrating Easter in Brussels, in the house. What is closely connected to these holidays? Certainly rabbits. In this way, a quick and fun decision caused two little grey rabbits moving into the house. Nico Huurman assembled a wooden cage for them and soon they started their new AEGEE life partly in the kitchen, partly in the garden. But as days were getting warmer, our CD members noticed that rabbits were animals after all and did belong to the nature. So “Flatfy” and “Zugie”, as they were called initially, just moved into the garden for good and soon started living real rabbit-like lifes including digging holes and… but let’s move back to September 2011.

Our two new grey and hairy friends found a little place in my heart, especially because I had promised in front of the entire Spring Agora Leiden that I would take care of them. Fortunately, the time in which they had to live on pure soil without grass was over and the rabbits could enjoy fresh green grass very soon!Miracles of nature
One sunny day in September when we had nice guests from Poland, the guy came to our kitchen and asked with a weird look on his face: “But… do you know that you have baby rabbits?” I just thought that there must be some funny confusion, as we were supposed to have two female long-eared! But the curiosity won and I quickly run into the garden to see three tiny baby rabbits sitting in front of the rabbit-house entrance: one black, one white and one grey. “Holy mother earth! This is a miracle!” Apparently the rumours about our friends having a lesbian love affair were true, just that it was not exactly lesbian.

From this moment on we had an entire rabbit-family living with us. But unfortunately, not everyone was friends with them, as some of the CD members were rather stating that the rabbits would look way better in a pot in a form of gulash. But they had also good protectors acting as their life insurance.

Carrots, I love them
Months were passing by and the little rabbits were eating, growing and eating. Autumn arrived and days were getting colder. The grass was less green and I started to support the family with bags of carrots. I had seen that many times in cartoons that they f****** love them, but I would not have expected that it was even more true in reality! Watching 5 rabbits eating one carrot while there are 20 around was indeed a funny view.

Hard winter
The winter came and December turned out to be the coldest month of the year. It was dark, cold and very snowy. Definitely times changed for the happy rabbit family and the tough part of living a rabbit-life began. Indeed, they were tough and could sit around for hours in the snow, but food was rare and we were supplying them with more carrots, salad leftovers and whatever we could spare (food is also rare for CD members). Finally, Christmas time arrived and basically everyone went for two weeks holidays.
After coming back I could see only one member of the furry family around. I started being worried about them and soon I found the lifeless body of our little white fellow. It was a very sad view. This one was albino, always a bit weaker and smaller than the others. But during the next days also the rest of the family did not appear. What had happened? Their bodies have never been found. While on the other hand, the remaining rabbit was pretty well of, did not seem to be sick, neither hungry. What had exactly happened there? Why did the other disappear? These questions unfortunately could never be answered.
In the next weeks the lonely rabbit was visibly sad, which is more than understandable. But as time was passing by, it was also curing his sorrow and the grey one started adapting to his new life. But soon he was supposed to meet a new rather untypical friend.

A new beginning and a new friend
The neighbour’s cat had been creeping around our garden already for some time. Obviously, the rabbit’s presence cought its attention and during each pass he was just measuring the rabbit with a suspicious look. But the grey friend was not scared. We could just assume that he was simply not aware of the dangers that the predator was bringing. Rather than being scared, the rabbit was bravely running towards the cat and simply scaring it away. We were following this theatre with great interest. However, after several weeks both involved parties started to develop some trust towards each other and the simple curiosity transformed into a deep friendship. From now on it was a frequent look to see the new and rather untypical couple to sit around in the garden, chase each other around and apparently having a great time together.
Then it was already one year since I moved into the house and it was time to move out. We all said goodbye to the little friend and our successors moved in. The next winter was not that harsh and the rabbit was certainly not expecting that just in a couple of months his life would change again. In springtime a new little inhabitant moved in: another rabbit! The CD decided to adopt him from a friend’s friend and the two soon started a new life together.

I could not follow it up myself, but stories have been said that after some initial misunderstanding the ice between the two was broken and now they are living together as best friends. There have been rumours that this even caused them to develop more trust towards the representatives of the human species and now it is even possible to touch both of them.
There is just one way to find out whether these rumours are true – visit the house and inspect the garden yourself.

Written by Michael Makowiecki, AEGEE-Hamburg

Photos: Michael Makowiecki, AEGEE-Hamburg

During preparation for the conference, also AEGEEans were asked to voice their ideas and opinions through an online questionnaire. The results of this consultation were compiled and contributed to the final result of the conference. Representing AEGEE were Luis Alvarado Martínez and René Janssen.

At the onset, it promised to be a clash between the youth representatives and the EU Commission. EU Commissioner, Androulla Vassiliou (Education, culture, multilingualism and youth), was present and she had a tough time explaining why her new streamlined and simplified youth programme: Erasmus For All, would cause no harm to youth organisations and the youth strategy. She claimed that the whole content of the Youth in Action programme was represented in the new one. If only the attendants of the conference and the European Youth Forum were able to gather ten differences between the old and the new programme, she would advocate to keep the Youth in Action programme. This challenge resulted in a movie with a sharp edge to it.

More movies were made and can be found on the same website as the link above. In total eight workshops resulted in 16 joint recommendations.

Most of the workshops covered the new programme and led to the same conclusion which is not to throw away all that has been accomplished so far with the Youth in Action programme and either to keep Youth in Action as a separate programme or to fully include all the contents of this programme in the new Erasmus for All. The Danish presidency proposed a compromise last month for the last option: a separate chapter in Erasmus for All with the contents of Youth in Action.

Now, why is this all important? - I can hear you thinking. Most importantly, because it involves the future of AEGEE! Almost 60% of the administrative budget of AEGEE comes from Youth in Action and the commissioner was quite adamant that the EU were no longer going to support international youth NGOs, of which AEGEE is one as well. That is why it is important that we keep raising our voice to make it heard that AEGEE is doing wonderful things and promotes active citizenship and cultural exchange among European youth! Visit also the specially created website to uphold the current Youth in Action programme.

Besides the new EU youth programme, another important issue was the topic of lowering the voting age to 16. From feedback from our consultations we had already learned that there was not that much enthusiasm for this idea and in the final result the recommendation to actually lower it was toned down to an advise to fuel this debate further.

The next EU conference is already scheduled and soon, you will be asked once again to voice your opinion on a new theme which is set out: “Social inclusion of young people with migrant background.”

Written by René Janssen, AEGEE Leuven

Photos provided by Magdalena Ole