During the Autumn Agora in Cagliari, Jorge Sánchez Hernández took the stage to present AEGEE-Dresden, which was at that moment still a contact. After his speech however, he signed the Convention d’Adhesion, transforming his contact into a contact antenna. Looking at the endless amounts of time, work and motivation he put into re-founding a local in Dresden, The AEGEEan thought it was about time to find out more about him!
The AEGEEan: First of all, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Who are you, and when and why did you join AEGEE?
Jorge: I’m Jorge, a 21 years old Spaniard living in Dresden. I love traveling, meeting people from different countries and cultures, food, beer, and AEGEEans. I joined AEGEE-Alicante on the day of the deadline to apply for a Summer University in 2013. I wanted to go to the SU in Helsinki, but it was the one with the most applications that year, so I decided to go to the Dutch-Deutsch Adventure organised by Enschede, Utrecht and Köln. The experience was so good that I became active right away. AEGEE has been very important in my life since then.
You are the re-founder of AEGEE-Dresden. What made you decide to start up a contact?
Made by Marco Müser, AEGEE-Köln
Since I moved to Dresden being a fresh member, I wanted to experience more in AEGEE, I had some experience with the European level, but no local level experience. AEGEE was such a good platform for me to develop my skills and meet awesome and inspiring people, that I just had to found a contact in Dresden to be able to share this opportunity with other students. It was quite hard to found a contact in a different country, without a network in the city, without proficiency in the language (I moved to Germany in November with no knowledge of German and founded the contact in March), and being alone at first. A month later however, Ingo from AEGEE-Aachen (who is now my flatmate) came, and we got Nora from another program, and everything started to grow. With four to five people, we were managing a buddy program for almost 400 students, as well as organizing a Regional Training Course, an exchange, building a web page and a long list of stuff. It has been a lot of work, and it still is, but we do it with passion!
Do you have any tips for other contacts who want to become a contact antenna too?
First of all, we would love to help any contacts who need help, so they can contact us and we will try to understand their situation and try to give our best advice. My tip would be to start organizing events. Even if you feel like you don’t have enough people (even if you’re just one), things will eventually work out and if you put passion into it, people will join you. Find something that is missing in your city, what other associations are not doing, and link it to AEGEE to attract new members. A good relation with the university is a must to grow fast. We get a lot of support since we became part of an official body of the university. We have an office and some financial support, and they also promote some of our projects. What is most important for me to grow, is that there is a good atmosphere in the team. Without being real friends and doing things together, I don’t think it would work so well.
What are your plans with AEGEE-Dresden in the upcoming months?
We just organised a Regional Training Course called “Develop Yourself!”, taking place from 11th – 14th December. In January we will host thirty AEGEEans from AEGEE-Krakow, who come from the 8th until the 11th to spend an awesome weekend with us in Dresden. Some days later we will also have an important meeting with the international department of the city hall to present our projects, and we will have our local Agora. After that, plans are still being discussed, but we have two other exchanges, a Travel Summer University, as well as some Local Training Courses coming up!
What have you done in AEGEE so far, besides setting up a contact in Dresden?
I was a helper at ZarAgora, taking pictures of all of you sleeping in plenaries. They will come to life when you expect them the least… I also was the Secretary of the Environmental Working Group (EnWG) last term, and I am still active in AEGEE-Alicante. But since February, AEGEE-Dresden has taken all my AEGEE time and I don’t have time this year for any European Projects, maybe next year again, but I like the local level as well.
Is there something you still want to do with AEGEE?
Of course I have dreams in AEGEE, but maybe I will keep them for now. If they become true, you will know! I would love to get some time and people to work on the CIA and change the situation of the contacts and contact antennae, since it’s not so convenient right now. It’s a lot harder to be a contact or a contact antenna since you don’t have many members, funds or experience, but the antenna criteria make it even more difficult.
What is the most fond memory you have of AEGEE?
I don’t think I could choose one, so I will choose three even though it’s still hard. One was being a helper at ZarAgora. It was really amazing to see so many people from so many countries, meeting people with unpronounceable names (yeah, it’s like the pot calling the kettle black) and it was an incredible surge of inspiration and motivation. The second was the Cantus I had with AEGEE-Enschede in my first SU with Paul Smits as Senior. It was really such a good experience I will never forget in my life. They were super creative and original. I recommend everyone to go for SU to Enschede, they are very professional. The third one, and maybe the one I will remember the most, was signing the CdA at Agora Cagliari. Lots of things accomplished with my team to reach that point. But, I can’t finish this without saying that the most valuable thing that AEGEE has given me is all the amazing people I have met on the way. All these people inspire me to keep going forward in all the projects and also outside of AEGEE, even when things don’t look so bright.
Written by Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen