Civic Education Working Group Coordinator for 57th Agora AEGEE-Europe
With the Agora right around the corner we at The AEGEEan are interviewing the candidates to give you an small insight into who the person is behind the face. Here we have with us Aynur Hasanzadeh, running for the CEWG coordinator position of AEGEE Europe.
INTERVIEWER: Hi Aynur, and thank you for this interview. Some readers that are new members of AEGEE haven´t heard about you. Could you please introduce yourself?
AYNUR: Hi, I am Aynur from the Civic Education Working Group. I am a member of AEGEE-Leiden for three years now. I am studying International Studies – Middle East track at Leiden University. Learning Persian at the moment and will start with Arabic next semester. I am a native Turkish speaker too, so at the end, I should be able to communicate everywhere in the Middle East (at least, that is my dream).
Furthermore, I am a saz (Turkish music instrument) player, a volleyballer, a cinephile, a debater and a human rights activist. I never know what to say about myself haha! But I think that reading through this interview will provide more information about me. Also, there is another interview with GoldenTimes, which is more personal if members are curious about me as a person.
I: You joined CEWG at the ending of 2018 and you attended some events like EPM that took place in Izmir (Turkey). What was your job in that field?
A: As you know, during the EPM the objectives for 2019-2020 were drafted for CEWG. I joined EPM to help the participants with the drafting of these objectives for CEWG. Even though I am one of the newest members, I could easily carry out the task due to my enthusiasm and experience in the field of Civic Education in general. I really loved to see how participants became more and more motivated about Civic Education and its aims throughout the sessions. At the end, we came up with five objectives! Very idealistic haha! But in my opinion, a little bit of idealism is needed anyway to tackle global challenges. So, the new objectives motivate me more actually. #challengeaccepted that is why I applied as a coordinator.
I would also like to mention that NWM-Poznan dedicated one whole day to WG’s where the pax got to know more about the WG’s and had to come up with events/projects related to one of the WG’s. I was representing CEWG, and it was amazing to see how many great ideas came up just during one day! Such teamwork makes me believe even more in the ideals of CEWG and I would love to go on with accomplishing of these aims.
I: Let’s get focused on the program. As a candidate for CEWG in the Spring Agora of Bucharest, what are your main objectives?
A: There are many things that need to be changed in AEGEE in general. In the case that I get elected as coordinator, I can already start with changes in CEWG at least. At the moment, we have some passive members, without any proper contact. I would like to get more group cohesion within CEWG in the first place. Secondly, the communication between the locals and WG’s are not the best neither. I am almost at every event/party talking about the opportunities which WG’s can offer to the locals because our members are simply not aware of the possibilities. We should improve communication for example through contacting the European Affairs Officer of the local’s board directly or even the European Committee if possible. In this way, I hope more collaboration will emerge between the locals and CEWG in order to achieve our objectives for 2019-2020. At the same time, NetCom is crucial in this collaboration too. Furthermore, I would like to develop more partnerships outside of AEGEE too. I have already found an organisation (focusing on SDG’s) to cooperate with for this year, and we are waiting for the CD’s decision. I am following external opportunities, partners in the field of Civic Education very closely and hope to work with them together, attend their events etc in the next year in the name of CEWG to facilitate and speed up our progress towards the objectives. Hopefully, bundling all forces together in this way should finally lead us to our main goal, which seems very idealistic and unachievable at the moment.
I: How can local antennae put on practice CEWG initiatives?
A: From what I see in the local antennae, is that many of them are contributing to the objectives already, but they are just not aware. Just by sending an email, they can get the material they need to put any of our initiatives on practice in their local.
I: Looking at your experience in other fields (volunteering at Amnesty International or representing AEGEE-Europe in the Dutch National Youth Council), some elements ofthese institutions and organisations could be implemented to improve activities andevents?
A: Within Dutch Youth Council, they are selecting Youth Representatives UN and EU each year. Once elected they run for two years. So, there are always two representatives for each position, one new and one with one year experience. This works really well, since one of them is already experienced, they are able to hold on the continuity. In smaller antennae, a new board is often not able to function very well during the first months because they must figure out a lot on their own. Maybe we could at least have one member from the old board in this antennae’s in order to help them to function more efficiently. I am also going on an exchange this summer with AIESEC to the Middle-East. Every opportunity provided by them is related to one of the SDGs. You can even search for SDGs for opportunities abroad. I guess we should focus more on the SDG’s as an organisation, not only CEWG. Some activities of other WG’s or projects within AEGEE contribute somehow to the SDG’s, but it is not mentioned or emphasised. Furthermore, AIESEC is working together with a great umbrella organisation focused on SDGs. We should, as AEGEE, join them too so that we can cooperate with the SDGs.
I: Finally, if you are not elected, what are your plans for the future?
A: I will definitely stay in the CEWG as a member. Furthermore, I would like to get involved in EaP+ project. I am personally interested in the cooperation with the countries outside the European Union since I am originally from Azerbaijan, which is one of those countries EaP+ is working on. Besides that, I have another project in my mind to restart, which was once established by AEGEE, but did not succeed to continue: the EuroArab project. I guess it is the right time to continue with this project.