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Yes it is sentimental melodrama time – and here is my candidature speech from Agora Eskisehir on November 2, 2007. If you find anything stupid, blame it on my youth :-)
Dear Agora,
It is an utmost privilege to stand in front of you today, an honor and experience I will never forget whatever the outcomes will be.
It is an honor rather forgotten, to vote and stand to be elected, to overcome the boundaries, to reach other places and people and let others reach to and within you. To learn and to teach, to ask and to answer. To be informed and curious, critical and constructive, to be young and full of courage yet wise, both patient and persistent. To be competent, competitive yet humble and open-minded, to debate, discuss, tackle the issues but with respect and empathy, to take an action, make a change, however small and hard it may seem and never lose the belief that everything is possible and you are making an impact. To be inspired yet realistic, able to stand high and to stand corrected, self objective and constantly improving. Yes, it is an honor to be a true European citizen, member of AEGEE. And it is an honor as well for Europe to have AEGEE working so hard and so much for its present and its future.
It is a new Europe that we live in today, an ever-changing, open and dynamic. When most of us here were born democracy was just a dream for half of Europe, academic mobility was still a concept waiting for Erasmus to happen, frequent flying was just for businesspeople and mobile phones and internet were still waiting to come about. Peace and stability, based on respect for human rights and rule of law, trade and industry growth through open market economy and social progress based on respect for diversity – all these things that AEGEE has been working for, for more than twenty years, are getting momentum in modern Europe.
It is a challenging time as well, with battle against global terrorism, religious and political extremism, unsustainable European social model, natural resources endanger and immigration.
For AEGEE this is a time of opportunity. Opportunity to redefine ourselves – what we stand for, what we do about it and how we do it. To be better in what we do well, to learn lessons and improve where we are lacking behind. To be new and brave, to lead and push for things that are important and relevant tomorrow rather than today. We should put new efforts to increase quality and attractiveness, widen scope and audience and enhance impact of AEGEE activities and find new ways to promote and support understanding and cooperation among students in Europe and the values of the European unity.
I am standing in front of you today willing to help that change to happen now. Am I the right person to do it is for you to decide. Credentials that I think might help you make that decision are listed in my candidature and I hope you will read them, as I won’t mention any of them here. Instead I will tell you what I plan to do.
1. I want AEGEE to organize a wide scale campaign for young people’s participation at next European Parliament elections with extensive use of online services. It will be a fresh platform aiming to defeat EU democratic deficit by encouraging youngest European democrats to take a stand on issues that concern them the most and bringing their democratic representatives to listen and deliver.
2. I want to promote and support AEGEE true practice of European Citizenship, which is for majority of people still a distant concept rather than set of real policies. Everything that we do to point out the problems and make even smallest contribution for their solutions, from grassroots to European level is important as this is the issue where we can lead the way and advocate for European citizenship to become a political, legal, social and cultural framework for European civil society.
3. I want to support and encourage new and existing AEGEE non-formal learning activities and internal education formats and their constant development to become the brightest examples of educational experience in non-formal settings and our trademark towards both institutions and students, when it comes to generic skills acquirement.
4. I want AEGEE to become a champion caller for recognition of non-formal and informal learning by developing high standards and innovative instruments for quality assessment and quality assurance of all our activities. It is an only way to move things forward to complementary role of formal and non-formal education.
5. I want AEGEE to become vibrant place for exchange of opinions and development of policies. I want to encourage our members to think, discuss and take a stand. I want our working groups to become real and relevant think-tanks on major developments in Europe today.
6. I want AEGEE to influence European policy makers and action takers by delivering results oriented and solutions driven projects and making sure that their outcomes are promoted, understood and recognized.
7. Finally I want our network to regain its thematic focus in whatever we do. In my opinion there are no serious or fun events in AEGEE. Everything that we do is contributing to the big picture. And all our events, especially statutory and summer universities, should have more thematic input.
Dear Agora, I strongly believe that AEGEE is a unique collection of remarkable young people that is doing so much and can do more, just with a little change in practices and attitudes. I hope that we can make this change together. And I hope that we can make it now.
Thank you for this opportunity and your patience.