>
There are hundreds of thousands of local organisations, thousands of national ones, hundreds of international associations, tens of umbrella institutions that are working to co-ordinate all of our activities… So the question is: Who the hell, is leading us, representing youth, advising institutions and speaking loudly about what bother us?
Well, there might be many answers but there is one, unique, umbrella organisation that gathers around one hundred National Youth Councils and international youth associations, so different as YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) and ESN or Scouts and young politicians! That organisation is, of course, the European Youth Forum YFJ. Simply you can find there the whole spectrum of youth activists who, more or less, represent all different backgrounds and fields of involvement. The main aim is to lobby and advocate for youth, for all young people towards mostly European institutions and therefore influent their work on the topics concerning us.
But in that case, if there is such a cool institution, who leads it? There are two major entities running the YFJ in it day-to-day work. In the Secretariat of YFJ work, usually, around 25 people dealing with its day-to-day administration and policy monitoring. They are also consulting their steps with the Member Organisations. All of them work in Brussels to stand for our rights and you can meet them during many different meetings, conferences and pretty often also co-operating with our projects or working groups. There is also a more political body, elected once every two years, the Board of YFJ, which is responsible for monitoring and implementing the work plan and policies that Member Organisations agree on.
While writing this short post I am in Kyiv at the General Assembly of the European Youth Forum YFJ, representing AEGEE and taking care for a proper representation of our needs, visions, ideas and voice. In the next two days the European Youth Forum will elect its new Board and adopt the new work plan. I strongly encourage you to check out the YFJ’s website to learn more about its activities!
As the slogan says, “European Youth Forum stands for youth rights”, now we have to be sure that youth rights include AEGEE’s ideas!