Workshops During Autumn Agora Kyïv II: Refugee Crisis and Reflecting on Europe

During Autumn Agora Kyïv, several workshops will take place, divided into four sessions. The first three sessions will take place in the second day of the Agora, and the fourth one will be on the fourth day.

In the first session of workshops, which will be on the 15th of October, from 12:00 to 14:00. There will be one workshop called ‘Identity’ and Liberation, held by Dr. James M. Skelly, Director of the Center on Critical Thinking. With this workshop, he will try to show participants how the socialisation process to an identity is similar regardless of in arton3290which social environment it happens. Everyone has their own identity, but in the end we all identify with being “humans”, and we all have a common fate.

Second session of workshops, which will take place in parallel from 15:30 to 17:30, are Refugee crisis – what can you do, and what can AEGEE do? and How to support youth participation: e-tools for democracy.

The first named one, is going to be held by Thomas Leszke from AEGEE Election Observation regarding the European refugee crisis. “It aims to create a basic understanding of what is happening, and to generate ideas how AEGEE and its members could respond to it”. The workshop will have two parts, the first one about the Common European Asylum System, an introduction, and the second one will be “brainstorming and developing ideas for concrete action by AEGEE-Europe, its Locals and its individual members”.

The second one, How to support youth participation: e-tools for democracy, will be held by Andrea Ferrara, Project Manager of the EUth project, and Nils Altland, Liquid Democracy e.V. During the past years, technology changed our lives. We can communicate and get to know people really easy nowadays. With this workshop, participants will be challenged to take advantage of all the tools so they will have their voices heard. In the same time, thoughts and opinions on how e-tools can support youth participation will be shared.

The fourth, and the last workshop session will take place on the fourth day of the Agora, from 12:00 to 13:30, calledimagen_03 How do YOU think and feel about Europe and its future? and it will be lead by Maarten de Groot from Your Vision for Europe. In order to give an idea on what will happen at this workshop, he said that “we will discuss questions related to the future and the identity of the European project in an open, personal, (interactive) and accessible manner. Let me give you an idea of what type of questions will be discussed: do you consider yourself a European? Is your European identity stronger than your national identity? Do you feel informed about European political issues? Are you worried about the future of Europe?”. They aim to trigger the curiosity and imagination of the participants, by changing stories and experiences among them. The workshop is the kickoff activity of the project, Your Vision for Europe. During this one, “AEGEEans will be able to enter the discussion on the identity and the future of the European project in an accessible manner”. Divided in two parts, the workshop will make use of the “cross the line” method, and the participants will also work in groups in order to identify the main challenge that Europe is facing lately and have a discussion about it. For the ones that want to learn more, but in the same time want to practice their skills in public speaking, critical thinking and open, inclusive communication, this workshop will be one of the best place they could be at that time.

Written by Raluca Radu, AEGEE-Cluj-Napoca