Maria is a 23-year-old girl from Groningen. She is a second-year student of Spanish philology and a very active member in AEGEE. Because she is now applying for a position in the Network Commission (NetCom), it is time to get to know her a little better.
Her AEGEE career started on a local level, as most of them do. She organised a trip to Brussels with AEGEE-Groningen in May 2011. This is where she got inspired by Thomas Leszke, who was the Projects Director of AEGEE-Europe at that time. He told the group from AEGEE-Groningen about all the possibilities of the European level in AEGEE and Maria got really enthusiastic about the Social Inclusion Project. It did not take her long to contact the right people to ask how she could get involved.
That was how it all started.
The project did not work out at that moment, but it inspired Maria and others to re-establish the Human Rights Working Group. After the ratification at the Agora in Enschede, she was elected speaker.
She is also secretary of the Health4Youth project. She was enthusiastic right away when reading the open call. She loves to cook, and she loves healthy cooking even more.
But of course, AEGEE is not all Maria is. For a big part, yes, but she has other interests. As she said it: “Basically, I like a lot of things”. She loves travelling, cooking and languages. She spent five months in Nicaragua doing developmental aid. She worked with street children and learned a lot from that experience.
She often throws dinner parties for friends, because she enjoys spending a whole day in the kitchen. She loves to read cookbooks, just to figure out what her next meal should be.
Maria speaks Dutch, English, Spanish, German and is currently learning French and Portuguese.
When I asked her to describe herself in three words, the conversation went silent for quite some time.
“May I ask a friend to describe me?” was her first sentence after a long pause. Finally she came up with some very typical descriptions of herself.
“I am enthusiastic, because I like everything. I am always planning new things. Also I am a dreamer. I think dreaming is really important. If you want to achieve something, you should not always think too realistic. I do not think that will bring you much further. I tend to dream a lot and sometimes I could be a little unrealistic. I also see myself as optimistic. I prefer to look on the bright side of things. Seeing things in a negative way will not get you anywhere. It is just demotivating.”
After the interview was over, I got an email from Maria, telling me her friend had given her a response to her request to describe Maria. She added the words caring, interested and social. Maria agreed, but would never describe herself that way.
The question that of course needed to be asked was: why NetCom?
“Well, I have been active in AEGEE for a while now and I have thought about it for some time. In the beginning I was not sure, but now I know I would love to do this. I think supporting people is the thing in life I love to do most. And what else could I do better for AEGEE than supporting antennae? I want to give something back to the Network, because I love it so much and it has given me so much already.
I also feel there is some need for improvement. A great challenge could be Euroscepticism. This is happening all over Europe, but mainly in the UK. The current tendencies are to disconnect from the European Union. I think that is a challenge for a Network Commissioner and I am ready to take it on!”
For Maria, applying for NetCom was not a hard decision to make. She had been doubting a bit about the amount of time it would take, but the urge to just do it was way stronger than her doubts. She is sure she can manage it and feels confident she will do a good job.
After this I asked her about her plans for SubCommissioners and this is what she said:
“At least I want to choose my SubCommies in the most democratic way possible. That is very important to me. I want to wait and see if I will get elected, and if I do, I want to place an open call to the local boards, which they can distribute among their members. Ideally I would like to have someone working in the South of the Netherlands or Belgium, someone in the United Kingdom and someone in the Western part of the Netherlands.”
If you are thinking about applying for SubCom, these are the qualities Maria would like to have her SubCommies to have.
“Easy going, of course. I would like to see them take active part in the Network. They need to know the members they are dealing with. It would also be good if they had organisational skills, because that would be useful for organising Network Meetings and Regional Training Courses. Of course they need to have the motivation, the time and the willingness to be a SubCommissioner.”
Maria has some big plans for her term as a NetCom. Should she get elected, she would like to make all of the antennae a bit more thematic. She would like to make the locals in Belgium and the United Kingdom more visible and besides that she would like to see if there is interest for AEGEE in Ireland as well. Furthermore she would like to organise three Network Meetings and two regional training courses.
“And of course I would support the antennae wherever they need me”.
Maria has also thought about her future plans, but wants to keep things open. She wants to do a Masters in Human Rights, Peace and Sustainable Development in Valencia, Spain.
“After that, I honestly do not know. But I think I would like to live somewhere in Spain, Portugal or South America.”
The final question was what she would recommend to people who want to become active in AEGEE.
“I would say there are a lot of things you could do to become active. First of all, be actively involved in Agorae and EBM. It motivates you, you meet a lot of new people and you hear what is going on in the Network. You can also explore your options during the AEGEE Fair at statutory events. It is very easy to join a Working Group and get involved, follow what they are doing. I think these are the most easy ways to become an active member.”
Written by Sanne Hillemans, AEGEE-Groningen