During Spring Agora Patra two new Contacts were announced to the Network, namely the Contacts in Dresden and Podgorica. The AEGEEan spoke with the founders of the new Contacts, Jorge Sánchez Hernández and Filip Rasovic to find out more about these new additions to the AEGEE network.
Jorge Sánchez Hernández became a member of AEGEE-Alicante in April 2013 to go on a Summer University, without knowing anything about AEGEE, but during the Summer University he quickly fell in love with it. “But when I moved to Dresden last October, there was no AEGEE here”, Jorge says. “I wanted to meet more ‘AEGEE kind of people’, so with the help of the old board, some friends and a lot of time we revived AEGEE in Dresden again.”
At the moment two people are involved in AEGEE-Dresden, and another four are helping out with a project that is planned to be launched in the next summer semester. Through local trainings, activities with other non-governmental organisations (NGOs), a buddy program and exchanges the team wants to promote AEGEE in Dresden. “We want to reach a group of motivated, fun and hardworking people, who are willing to grow and learn”, Jorge says. The new contact is not alone in this search, since the local gets support from both AEGEE-Aachen and AEGEE-Alicante. “Next to this, we cooperate with Erfurt, Leipzig and München and the rest of the German locals are also helping out wherever they can”, Jorge says. “I did not know that the German network of active members is so good!”
Filip Rasovic had been a member of AEGEE-Novi Sad for a few years, where he organised a number of different workshops, motivation weekends and Summer Universities. Next to this, he was also PR Responsible in the board. “I come from Podgorica myself”, Filip says, “and I think that students in Montenegro should be acquainted with AEGEE too. In my opinion, Podgorica is AEGEE in small. Montenegro is very multi-ethnic as well as multicultural, and especially Podgorica is basically a student’s town. It’s the essence of AEGEE in a city.”
At the moment twelve students are involved in the contact, by working on a promotion campaign. “Our first plan is to have an official call for interested students that want to become a part of the AEGEE-family”, Filip says. “To attract as many students as possible, we will hold introduction panels at the different universities in Podgorica, make good use of promotion material and social media, collaborate with the media scene in Montenegro and other NGOs.” Next to this, the contact is also planning to organise an interdisciplinary panel discussion in Podgorica. To fulfill their plans, support has been offered by AEGEE-Leiden and locals in Serbia and Croatia. “We will meet the members of AEGEE-Leiden in June”, Filip says. “And we are hoping to get in contact with many more AEGEE locals!”
Written by Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen