At the Spring Agora Enschede, AEGEE welcomed new “babies” in its family – it ratified previous contracts of new locals and signed the Conventions d’Adhésion (CdA) from the latest Network Meetings, as well as the new ones.
However, among all the new locals, there was one which started its history long before Agora Enschede – AEGEE-Sumqayit.
The AEGEE Contact in Sumqayit was started in April 2011, right before Spring Agora Alicante, and during the year that passed until the signing of the CdA, the contact managed to organise more events than an average AEGEE local would in a few years.
Every month, the AEGEE Contact in Sumqayit had more and more surprises in its activity reports – several presentations in a row at the biggest universities, the “Broad Hearts” Charity Campaign for children with heart diseases, the “Brain Ring” championship in Sumqayit schools, a round table for the “Human Rights Day”, the International Forum of Young Leaders, a big Youth UnEmployment Action Day, training camps and lots more – this was all done in the first 6 months after the contact was approved by the Comité Directeur.
“We want to make Sumqayit a center of youth in Azerbaijan,” said Azer Maharramov, the President of AEGEE-Sumqayit, during the first Skype meeting with me, their Network Commissioner. It sounded ambitious and unlikely to happen in such a short time… But it wasn’t the case with Sumqayit.
The city of Sumqayit was founded a little bit more than 60 years ago and now it is already the third largest city in Azerbaijan. Located on the shore of the Caspian sea, at a distance of 31 km from the capital, the city had all the chances to merge with the capital and become a part of Baku in a short time. However, this didn’t happen, and so far the city is developing very fast and independently, being a city of young people and youth activity.
Does this situation remind you of our new-born local? Indeed, AEGEE-Sumqayit started its development extremely fast, the same its city did many years ago, and it seems that there’s only a little bit left until it can become a big competitor of the oldest and biggest local in Azerbaijan, AEGEE-Baki. Competition? No way! Only friendship and extremely effective cooperation exists between those two wonderful locals and the clear evidence of this is the Summer University of AEGEE-Baki and AEGEE-Sumqayit, which they are organising together this summer.
Not for the first time, the whole AEGEE Network can observe the real boost of European activity in the geographically far located Caucasian region. One time we may call it an accident, two times – coincidence, but after the third time it becomes a rule. Welcome to our newest Caucasian miracle: AEGEE-Sumqayit!
Written by Olga Iatsyna, AEGEE-Dnipropetrovsk
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