This past week, our Network woke up with some very good news coming from Switzerland. A new Contact of AEGEE-Europe has just been established in the beautiful, Italian-speaking city of Lugano, known for its stunning natural scenery. The AEGEEan has spoken to Abdulla Abdullayev, who had already known AEGEE in his homecountry, Azerbaijan, and now he is looking forward to making the new Swiss Contact of AEGEE-Europe grow.
Abdulla (first one on the left) and Raffaele Tardio (third one) are president and vice-president of the new Contact of AEGEE-Europe in Lugano
Abdulla Abdullayev had known AEGEE-Europe back in 2008 in his hometown in Azerbaijan. A friend of his, being a member of AEGEE-Bakı, was promoting the Summer University Project, and he became immediately interested in it and applied to what he would resume as “an amazing experience with international students abroad”. He currently lives in Switzerland, where he has just started his Masters’ studies. The university of Lugano, according to him, is “relatively young and in need of international relations; and it’s actually quite open for different kind of projects”.
However, he was shocked that there was not an AEGEE local at the USI (Università della Svizzera Italiana), so he saw in this a great chance to learn more and to get involved in AEGEE again. According to him, it was not really that hard to set up the Contact and obtain the agreement from the university. “Except for the case”, Abdulla says, “that it was really hard to grab a hold of the director of the USI at his office. He was always extremely busy and elsewhere!”.
“Not many people are involved in our AEGEE activities right now”, he says. Nevertheless, he has managed to motivate a bunch of his friends and classmates in order to make the new Contact of AEGEE-Europe in Lugano grow; he counts it to be a group of about ten people. The next stage is promotion of AEGEE’s projects in the university: “honestly, I don’t feel myself very confident how I should present the organization”, he admits, but his team plans to start their first members’ campaign after the winter break.
Monte S. Salvatore in Lugano
The new Contact has also felt very supported inside AEGEE: “I would especially like to express my gratitude to Mattia Abis, the Network Commissioner of our region, since he was very helpful in creating the contact indeed”. Lugano is the second city in Switzerland where AEGEE will be established, after AEGEE-Fribourg. When we ask Abdulla about the reasons behind the lack of activity of the organization in Switzerland, he answers that “it is hard to create antennae in Switzerland probably because of the different state model of the country, as well as not being a member of the European Union”.
Lugano is a “really special place for Switzerland” and definitely a spot not to be missed for future AEGEE events. It is the biggest town of Ticino (the Italian-speaking canton of Switzerland), and at the same time it is its main financial center. Another important reason is “the location of Lugano, as, it is not classic Switzerland and it is not Italy yet”, not to mention its undeniable beauty and natural scenery.
Talking about the future, Abdulla says that their next goal will be to become a Contact Antenna and to participate in further more important events of AEGEE. We will hopefully get to meet them very soon – meanwhile, we wish them lots of luck in their plans!
Written by Anna Gumbau, AEGEE-Barcelona