Can you believe it? AEGEE-Praha has already turned 30! What a number! And to celebrate that special occasion they planned an amazing birthday event. 40 participants from all over Europe joined, and out of my own experience -I was one of them- I can tell you it was a blast. We got to see Praha’s best sights by  foot and by boat, eat delicious Czech food, explore the nightlife and of course celebrate AEGEE-Praha’s birthday with a huge party. The birthday weekend was a full success for sure and the amazing organizers did their best to make it unforgettable. But now, let’s ask Filip Brunclík, the president of AEGEE-Prague, how he and his antenna perceived the celebration.

Happy Birthday AEGEE-Praha! How does it feel like to be 30 and what did you guys plan to celebrate this special occasion?

It feels like an eternity… 30 years is a big deal, and we are really grateful for everyone who ever contributed in making AEGEE-Praha great. During those 30 years many people helped, either as board members or just as helpers to spread the AEGEE spirit. Without every single one of them, we would not be where we are today. To celebrate this occasion, we planned a 4 days long event filled with funny activities, and enjoyed it with 40 participants from all over Europe.

It feels like half of Europe did come to Praha to celebrate this birthday. How much work was it to plan everything?

That’s true… We were really surprised by how many people applied for our event. The planning process was not easy… it was like organizing a short Summer University, but for 40 people, which is a lot to manage. We didn’t even plan to have 40 participants, but after receiving so many applications, we had no other choice but to increase the capacity, and we are happy we did so. Thanks to that we had more fun and met more new AEGEE friends.

 So all the hard work was worth it in the end. 

It was. After the event, many other locals reached us, and wanted to cooperate. Either just having an exchange, or organizing events together. This event was basically the first international event after a long time which didn’t take place during summer, and we were so happy to organize something big after such a long time. It gave us a lot of new motivation and opportunities to cooperate. Too bad you only turn 30 once…

How did the pandemic affect you as an organization and this special event in particular?

We were lucky about this event, since there were no serious restrictions. Only those which didn’t really affect the event, such as vaccination required in restaurantsAnd since everyone was vaccinated, participants probably didn’t even notice there was such a rule.

How much did AEGEE-Praha change in the last three decades? Do you still have an active community full of AEGEE spirit?

Three decades are too much to remember, and even more than most of our members actually are old. But yes, we have an active community full of AEGEE spirit. The pandemic actually showed us how strong of a community we have. When Covid hit us, our members started to organize online game nights almost every day. It was amazing to see that in hard times, they still want to spend time together, and that they will always find a way no matter the circumstances.

What are your plans for the next 30 years? Can you already tell us something about any upcoming events?

We plan to organize Summer University and probably create a new international project… So stay tuned to find out more.

AEGEE-Muğla just elected a new board and we want to introduce the new, motivated, board members and their plans for the AEGEE-community. If you haven’t heard about AEGEE-Muğla yet, now is the time to learn more about the antenna which is located in the Southwest of Turkey.

Hello guys! First of all, congratulations on being elected as the new board of AEGEE-Muğla. Can you tell us about yourselves? 

Sup everybody! I am Atta Rajab, the president of AEGEE-MUĞLA. I am 21 years old and studying Electrical and Electronics Engineering. I joined AEGEE three years ago and I met a lot of awesome people. Joining AEGEE has given me a different perspective and made me experience stuff I never knew that I needed to experience. For example, I am managing the design and PR of our antenna. Also, I like jogging as a way to relieve stress. So, if you see me running outside don’t stop me because I could be either after a new record or so pissed off that I would take it out on you ( JK). I speak three languages and I still can’t find enough words to express myself so that’s all I’m gonna say for now.

 Hello, my name is Onur Bektaş, I am 21 years old Computer Engineering student and the secretary of AEGEE-MUĞLA. As part of AEGEE-MUĞLA I met a lot of good friends and got great opportunities so far. AEGEE is like a family for me. One big passion of mine is basketball. Also, I am a huge anime boy and it’s like another world to me. But most importantly, I am a huge F1 fan.

Hi! I am Cansu Cangüven. I am 23 years old and a Medical Student. In addition, I am the HR responsible of AEGEE-MUĞLA. I have been a board member since last year and being  part of AEGEE makes me overjoyed because it brought me precious memories. That is why my nickname is Joy. Also, I’m the biggest fan of the TV series called How I Met Your Mother. I keep making references to it all the time and sometimes it annoys people. Other than that, I love painting, Sudoku, Yoga and meditation. So, I’m not gonna ask you “Haaaveee you met Cansu?”, because: Yes, you just did.

Hello there. My name is Mevce Abatay. I am 21 years old, studying nutrition and dietetics and the treasurer of AEGEE-MUĞLA. I joined AEGEE about three years ago because of my desire to travel abroad. But after participating in some events, I realized that AEGEE is much more than that: I made great friendships and I developed myself. As you can probably guess from my studies, I enjoy discovering new dishes and making them healthier. Also, I love doing sports outdoors. It gets hard to do this in Muğla in winter though. The weather is constantly rainy and cold like London. 

AEGEE-Muğla is one of our Turkish antennas. But that is simply not enough to define it, right? What makes your antenna special? 

What makes AEGEE-MUĞLA special is that it creates a very friendly atmosphere. The participation rate in the local activities is very high and we can see that people are enjoying it. We became a really big family.

Do you have a mascot? Tell us about your fluffy friend!

Shelly, our mascot and the fluffiest member of our family is a Caretta-Caretta turtle. They have habitats in Muğla and are an endangered species that needs to be protected. Shelly attends all our events and we are sure that she’s having a lot of fun with us.

What are your plans for the next term? Are you going to continue some ongoing projects and do you already have ideas for new ones? 

We are planning on organizing many social activities and social responsibility projects in Muğla. Also, we want to organize a European-level event in cooperation with an environmental project that we always wanted to do. You will probably hear about it in our next term. Our main goal is to expand our family and to convey the spirit of AEGEE to more people. We plan to continue our speaking clubs.

We all had a rough year during the pandemic and many antennas really suffered. How did AEGEE-Muğla manage?

Pandemic conditions have hit us all hard. Even though we couldn’t catch the crowd in Muğla, we continued organizing our speaking clubs through online platforms every week. Furthermore, we organized an online LTC with AEGEE-IZMIR… We had to keep the team spirit alive! 

Anything else you wanna share with the whole AEGEE-network? 

We just want to thank the AEGEEan for this interview, keep in touch for news about us. See you somewhere in Europe! 

Hello AEGEEans! Hope you are doing well and enjoying this summer that is starting. As a treat from us, we bring you the Local of the Month: AEGEE-Krakow! With a little more than 40 active members —and the ambitious goal of getting even more ;) — you’ll discover (if you didn’t know it yet) a welcoming and wise local that knows what matters and is about creating a big, crazy, loving family. Read this article to know everything about them! 

Congratulations on being awarded the Local of the Month! We’d like to hear more about you! 

Thank you very much for this great honor and choosing us. Currently we have a little more than 40 active members but our ambition is to get even more ;) It’s very hard for us to choose just one key activity or project in our local area because what sets us apart is our diversity of activities. In the spring we had 2 different projects from our usual ones: a Sexual Education Project ” Merytorycznie o Seksualności”; and a Political Activism Project “Operation Diplomat”.

What are some of the most memorable moments you’ve had in your Local? 

Every year we have this special event we call “The Oscars”. It’s an opportunity to reward people from our antenna for their good work and their great achievements and to thank the previous board members for their outstanding performance.

What has been the key to your success? Which areas have you found challenging and how did you overcome them? 

We would definitely want to work more with other locals from all over Europe. We discovered that the key to success is people, so it’s very important to make sure that everybody feels welcome in our local area and knows that we will always have their back ;) We are all in AEGEE; one big, crazy, loving family.

Some words of wisdom to other locals?

Always listen to your people and make sure that they are okay. People work better when they know that someone cares about them. AEGEE is about making connections. Never forget that.

Any closing remarks?

We want to thank everybody who chose us as their local of the month and we also promise to keep up our good work ;)  See you all at the next Agora. 

Dear Aegeeans, you didn’t need to vote that strongly, but you did anyway (AEGEE Spirit right there)! And with a landslide victory – really, sooo many votes – here you have your Local of the Month: AEGEE-Gdańsk. Their victory is well deserved, for they truly fought until they were down to their last men – literally, they were at the minimum – and now they stand strong with 15! Read the article to know more about this awesome local! 

Question: Congratulations on being awarded the Local of the Month! We’d like to hear more about you!

Answer: Thank you very much! We really appreciate that! About us… We have 15 active members. Our main project in April was Getting Ready to Travel in cooperation with the Language Interest Group. During seven weeks, Aegeeans from different countries showed us the beauty of their country, where and when to travel, what delicacies to try, and the basics of the languages. The best part of this project was that, even though the meetings were taking place online, we could still feel the AEGEE Spirit, because we could meet new Aegeeans. Also, after every main meeting, we had a discussion about Focus Areas correlated topics. Every member had a space to share their thoughts. We also had a workshop about Mental Health. From time to time, we brainstorm so that everyone can share their ideas for the projects. A big advantage of the fact that we are a small local is that everyone can find some challenging tasks to do, get experience and develop. I am really proud of our Local because last year we thought we would have to close the antenna, but actually, after some time, we found our chance in the pandemic situation and we used it. I think now AEGEE-Gdańsk will keep on rising and surprise everyone with how prosperous it becomes. That’s also why it means so much that we are chosen as the Local of the Month.

Q: What are some of the most memorable moments you’ve had in your Local? 

A: I have been in AEGEE for four years and the most memorable moment of mine is when I coordinated Summer University in 2018 in cooperation with Monika Mojak from AEGEE-Warsaw. It was amazing to be part of it. I also appreciate that AEGEE-Gdańsk organised LTC’s and regular workshops. I need to say that I definitely did develop in AEGEE. As the current president of AEGEE-Gdańsk, I will also definitely remember the success of the last recruitment and meeting new, great people – our new members.

Q: What has been the key to your success? Which areas have you found challenging and how did you overcome them?  

A: The key to success was not giving up. I know it sounds really cliché but it’s true in our case. Also, creating a team out of a few creative people has power! Brainstorms where everyone can share ideas and leaders listen to those ideas. In AEGEE we have a variety of people with different experiences and ideas. The key is to combine them into something great! The most challenging thing was not to lose hope when the pandemic started but when you are on board and you have at least one new person in the antenna you just do your best to show how great AEGEE is. I think that was the biggest motivation.

Q: Some words of wisdom to other locals?

A: Adaptation to a new reality is difficult but is really important for success. With a team, you can do more and better. Don’t give up and remember that if you have any problems you can ask other Aegeeans and other antennae for help; either a piece of advice or a joint event. We are in it together and that is what makes AEGEE so amazing!

Q: Any closing remarks?

A:  I would like to say thank you to everyone who voted for us! And we hope to see you at the next events we’ll organise. Go Gdańsk! Go Gdańsk! Go Gdańsk, go Gdańsk, go Gdańsk! :D

Hello dear AEGEEans! Another month and another ‘local of the month‘ we proudly present to you! And what a local! With an awesome team of 20 active and energetic members, more projects than one can count – Urban Jungle, Foreign Voices, PR Masters project, one that’s a secret but that you’ll discover if you read the article shhhh – and amazing words of wisdom (except the key one, where to buy a ‘Iulia’) here comes AEGEE-Bucaresti! 

Congratulations on being awarded the Local of the Month! We’d like to hear more about you! What sets you apart ?

Hello hello! Firstly we are very proud to be selected for this wonderful distinction. At the moment, our awesome team is formed by 20 active and energetic members who are the core of all the projects that we organized in the last period, we know it is not a big team but is a very well-knit one and as you know the saying – strong essences are kept in small bottles.

In the last period, as you probably already saw, we were focused on many areas of discussion. Firstly, we can start with our soul project “Foreign Voices” which debuted in early February in collaboration with our friends from AEGEE-Athina, AEGEE-Thessaloniki, and Language Interest Group. From the beginning, the scope of this project was to promote linguistic diversity and to help us to get to know the youth from other countries. We hope that we will attract as many friends as we can in this project because we think that it has the potential to be a long-term beautiful story.

Another project, that you probably saw on our social media, is the Urban Jungle, a project made in collaboration with our interns. The main purpose of this project was to raise awareness through students and young people on subjects such as financial education, marketing and digitalization, mental health, and project management. Given that it is a pilot project, the target audience was represented by students and young people from Romania. But, we have a secret that must remain between us – we are ready to move on to the next level and to launch it at the European level in collaboration with other antennas and interest groups.

Because the pandemic made us live our lives more in the virtual environment and we are very passionate about marketing and public relations, we decided at the end of the last year to organize a project focused on this field and it is known in our antenna as PR Masters, it was also a pilot version because we wanted to test the market and the project structure before launching it completely. Basically, we help people that entered this project to learn and understand what are the steps for a marketing campaign from the scratch.

And last but not least, our freshest project focused on raising awareness of the European Union and its programs and opportunities offered to young people. Europolis has the purpose to help young people to find what European Union, and especially European Parliament, has for them. 

Even if the pandemic hit us hard, we tried to gather our strength and be reborn because in 2020 we really lacked the life of the usual AEGEEan. So, when we started the academic year, we decided to give it a try and hold the autumn recruitment session because we know that we need a fresh start. This time, however, we changed tactics and reshaped our strategy to a qualitative rather than quantitative recruitment. And after that, the single secret to keep the people active and motivated is to organize as many projects as you can and to have weekly status meetings to check everything.

What are some of the most memorable moments you’ve had in your local? 

We think that probably most memorable moments are represented by Christmas activities and our Anniversary activities where we remember how our AEGEEan lives before the pandemic were and where we met alumni and people from previous projects and we walked through memories and old stories. Other memorable moments took place during workshops within the Urban Jungle, Foreign Voices, and PR Masters projects.

What has been the key to your success? Which areas have you found challenging and how did you overcome it? 

Even if we had a board, we think that each of us is equal and each opinion is important. When we talk about new projects or about the changes to the editorial plan we do brainstorm together and after that, all the ideas are analyzed by all of us and we start planning. Secondly, every team should have an engine that will move mountains and push you to take responsibility and evolve – for us this person is our president Iulia, who challenges us every day to push our limits. So if you don’t have an Iulia, you should buy one (smiles). And last but not least, we actively practice knowledge transfer by challenging people to accept key positions in projects, even if we talk about a Project manager project, a Graphic Designer one, or a Copywriter one.

Some words of wisdom to other locals?

Each of us should understand that: 

1. All the members are equal and have the right to express their ideas.

2. When we organize projects we should take into consideration the fact that the time of each of us is important so the deadlines should be respected.

3. During our time in AEGEE we should learn, work and have fun too. Basically, live our lives and create memories. 

4. Collaboration is the key to success and we must respect our promises.

Any closing remarks?
We hope that we will have a continuous evolution and that after the pandemic will be over we will organize projects again in real life because the connection between people is more stronger and interesting there. We also hope that the “See you somewhere in Europe” will be possible again because we really miss the travels and the AEGEE projects in the old way.

Small, quiet, and with the sexiest penguin alive as its mascot, here comes AEGEE-Heidelberg. It is always incredibly inspiring to come across antennas that may be small but have as big a spirit as any! Heidelberg faces its challenges with creativity, enthusiasm, and great poetic skill – check the end of the article if you want proof. It believes in communication and that the COVID19 situation is not an excuse for not still delivering the AEGEE spirit! We are happy to announce the Local of the Month, February 2021, AEGEE Heidelberg!

Congratulations on being awarded the Local of the Month! We’d like to hear more about you!

Hello. We currently have 43 members, around 15 of whom are active. Our key activities are ‘The Language Café’, our ‘Online Board Game Night’ and our constantly changing internal and Erasmus events. 

We try to motivate our members to take part actively in the planning and organisation of our events, and to have a good balance between thematic and fun events. We are a small and quiet antenna, but regardless of that we have many events. Another way to motivate our new members is our mentor-mentee-system, so that new people who join the antenna have a contact person to talk with and learn about AEGEE.

What are some of the most memorable moments you’ve had in your local?

Some of the most memorable moments in recent times were our ‘Secret Santa’ at Christmas and the month-long celebration of ‘AEGEE-Heidelberg’s 35th birthday’ in January. We had an online birthday party and many more awesome events. A lot of alumni participated and shared their experiences from their time with AEGEE. It was a gathering of many AEGEE generations which made us feel unique and united.

What has been the key to your success? Which areas have you found challenging and how did you overcome them?

Covid-19 is a challenge that affects every local, of course, and it makes it quite hard to retain those people who have just joined the local. For this reason, we try to be creative and organise various online events and challenges, e.g. ‘City Rallye’. We used the time of the online sessions to build up a network among members as well as between our local and others, to organize events together and to combine our strength. In recent times, we have had an online event with other locals almost every week. We also encourage our members to get active at European level.

Some words of wisdom for other locals?

Connect your local with others and use the opportunities that online communication gives you. 

Any closing remarks?

One day there was a fairy,

She said, “Join AEGEE, and you’ll be merry,

And if the times are hard,

Everything appears to fall apart,

Don’t hide away in your little shed,

But always think of this instead:

An AEGEE event every other day

Will keep my worries far away.”

And with this wisdom and advice

The fairy left and life got nice.

These are challenging months, in which the AEGEE-spirit is challenged on a daily basis – and it’s hard thinking about being the best. And because of that, our Local of the Month could not have arrived at a better moment! AEGEE-Plzeň beat all adversities and kept moving forward – an alive antenna is coming from a dead one if that is not impressive enough… They might be small but they are motivated, with a down-to-earth attitude that will surely take them places. 

Congratulations on being awarded the Local of the Month! We’d like to hear more about you! 

Hello everyone, thank you for awarding us with this amazing price. We have 5 active members, who are all on the board this term. In total, we have approx. 10 members. So 50% active and 50% non-active members. Since we have had 2 experienced newcomers join our team, we have become more active compared to the past few years because everyone is passionate to do things and to make AEGEE-Plzeň great again. So within the 2 last months, we have organised an online activity every week; Among us night, travelling and information meetings, pub quiz and so on. The proudest moment was when we recreated our web page www.aegee-plzen.cz and our new Instagram profile @AEGEE-Plzen.

What are some of the most memorable moments you’ve had in your local?

The most memorable moments are always when you organise an event and it is nearing its end, and you see the happy faces of your participants, then you know you did a great job. So we have high standards in AEGEE-Plzeň to make sure everyone who participates in one of our events (SU, Ski-week etc.), will always leave with amazing memories and new friends.

What has been the key to your success. Which areas have you found challenging and how did you overcome them?

The key to our success lies in communication and the links between board members. We are not only board members, but we have also been friends for many years. We have already organised a lot of events together and spent time together, so we know what we can expect from each other. So the most challenging thing is to make an almost dead antenna an alive antenna (laughing).

Some words of wisdom to other locals?

It is important:

● to realise that in AEGEE, all members are volunteers and they do the job in their free time

● that if you promise someone, that you will do a task, then you should communicate with others that you will not be in time to complete it or you do not know how to finish it

● to keep in mind that it is necessary to step out from your comfort zone and do things that you love on AEGEE, it is not only about administrative stuff

● to find members, who are active and willing to sacrifice their soul to AEGEE-Spirit (evil laugh).

Any closing remarks?

Thank you for choosing us for the Antenna of the month, we will do our best to keep this high standard during our term. Everyone can be the best, AEGEE-Plzeň is living proof of it.

They showed how one can look beyond the unfortunate current situation and still embrace the AEGEE Spirit to its fullest by organising Online Exchanges all over the Network!  They’ve been a great example to follow: meeting new people and connecting with AEGEEans, discovering different cultures, all from the comfort of your home. We are happy to announce the Local of the Month, November 2020, AEGEE Tartu!

Congratulations on being awarded the Local of the Month! We’d like to hear more about you! 

Thank you so much for this recognition! We were very happy and surprised to hear that we had been chosen as the local of the month. We currently have 44 members, and among them are 15 new members who joined us over the last half year. We have set an aim to organise a variety of different events every month, although we, of course, have some traditions, such as the bog hike in autumn and the Christmas event in December. We have organised a SU every year since at least 2013 and will hopefully continue to do this when it’s possible. We have a mentorship system at the antenna to help the new members integrate and we’re choosing the member of the month to keep the motivation high.

What are some of the most memorable moments you’ve had in your local?

During the last couple of years, we have had the opportunity to work closely and organise events together with quite a few locals. The strength of AEGEE lies in cooperation and communities, so these have all been very memorable adventures for us. The SU Tarthoven in 2019 and the NYE 2019/20 (with AEGEE-Helsinki as the co-organiser) were the most recent European events that we organised. Last summer, of course, it wasn’t possible to have an international SU. Nevertheless, we managed to organise a summer camp for our members and members of other local student organisations. The camp was centred around a slow lifestyle in a really nice retreat for all the participants. The same project team has been working all autumn and brought out seven episodes of a podcast called “There’s Time” (available in Estonian). There will also be a slow lifestyle magazine published by the team this winter.

And last but not least, it was a great honour for our antenna to be elected to organise the EPM 2021. Although the event is not going to happen live, we are very grateful to the CD and the whole network for believing in us. Hopefully, there will be a time in the future when we can organise an event of the same scale!

Despite the current pandemic, you’ve been keeping the AEGEE spirit alive by organising online exchanges. What were your secret ingredients?

Our aim with the exchanges was to keep the international vibes, which are so quintessential to AEGEE, alive. Due to the travel restrictions, it is currently not possible to organize European events, but we wanted our newbies to still experience this wonderful feeling of making new friends from different antennae. We are very happy that the online exchanges that we have had so far have been successful and entertaining to all participants, and we definitely plan to have more of those in the near future. Hopefully, we can visit our new friends physically as well, once it’s safe to travel again!

What has been the key to your success? Which areas have you found challenging and how did you overcome it?

We organised online events during the lockdown last spring, and have done it again since the middle of November. As the situation with the virus has already been going on for 10 months, people are starting to get really tired of this. In our experience, our members sometimes don’t feel motivated to participate in online events, since those can never replace the actual events. We have actually been quite lucky in that regard, since it was possible to have live events and meetings in Estonia during the summer and up until November. We have realized that, in order to motivate people to participate, online events have to vary in topics and be interactive. Luckily, we have some members with good technical skills, so even if technical difficulties have appeared, we have been able to overcome them. 

Do you have some words of wisdom for other locals?

Keep being patient and flexible! These times won’t last forever. It is just a matter of time until we can travel and AEGEE will bring people together physically again!

Any closing remarks?

Virtual hugs to everyone reading! We hope to greet you soon in our lovely little town of Tartu, or see you somewhere else in Europe.

October has been a busy month for AEGEE. Despite this, this local has had a very successful recruitment campaign and took responsibility to make sure that all the new members had a smooth introduction to the association. They also started the “GO Green” initiative as part of the Generation EU project. All this while the Agora was happening! We’re happy to introduce the Local of the Month, October 2020, AEGEE-Iași!

Congratulations on being awarded the Local of the Month! We’d like to hear more about you! What sets you apart?

We are glad to announce that currently, after the last recruitment session, our team is made up from a number of 50 members, all of them being active and implicated in all the events that we have had. As key activities we have social nights (movie nights, game nights), autumn recruitment project, EDL and HRD, Christmas party (charity party), GO Green. We are very proud that our members are so implicated in our activities, they are the best. 

What are some of the most memorable moments you’ve had in your local? 

After every online meeting we had, we spontaneously turned that serious meeting into a fun and entertaining social night which helped us better connect with our members.

October has been a busy month for you, from a successful recruiting session, to starting the “GO Green” initiative as part of the Generation EU project all while the Agora was happening. What were your secret ingredients?

In this situation it is very important to have a great team to rely on. Furthermore, we managed to find the right people to coordinate each and every activity that we implemented. For example, the autumn recruitment session has been a big challenge in terms of logistics, but due to our great experience with working with people, we managed to get over the hardest moments. Also, for us, the environment is a crucial part of our road to a better and a greener Europe. That is why we are so dedicated to this project. It is very well known that the development plan of the EU has shifted from a non-friendly to a friendly environment perspective. We are part of the EU so we are part of this movement to make this planet a better place for all of us. AEGEE-Iasi is proud to be a part of the locals that had the chance to send 3 members to the AGORA. To put it shortly we have had the attributes of perseveration, active involvement, dedication and commitment to our European ideals. 

What has been the key to your success. Which areas have you found challenging and how did you overcome it? 

The key to our success is simple: passion, hard work and the support between our team members. For us it was a challenge to organise the HR department and to maintain the engagement of all the members.

Some words of wisdom to other locals?

To us it is important to do every action with passion and to be motivated, because only in this way we are able to follow our European ideals. We also showed and are showing our appreciation to our members for their work.

Any closing remarks?

AEGEE-Iasi is glad to receive this award from AEGEE-Europe and for this we address to your team a big THANK YOU and we will work hard from now on to be a continuous source of inspiration for the people from the entire Europe and beyond.

As we all know, all Summer Universities were cancelled this year due to the pandemic, and although it was very sad for everyone, we always have to put our health and social responsibility first. Luckily, the situation improved in some countries and two of them did the first events of the summer -respecting safety measures, of course. This is why we congratulate AEGEE-Zagreb and AEGEE-Brescia, who have been elected Locals of the Month, August 2020! Let’s know more about these hardworking antennae!

Congratulations on being chosen as the Member of the Month, August 2020! To start off, tell us a bit more about your local.

A-Zagreb: Hey everyone! First of all, we would like to thank you all for the election as the local of the month. It means a lot to us and we are so happy and proud of this title. AEGEE-Zagreb as a local was founded back in 1993 and ever since it keeps spreading its network. We are currently the only local in Croatia. Throughout the years we have successfully organized events on both European and local level: language courses, summer universities, conferences, celebrations and cultural exchanges. We have hosted hundreds of young Europeans, some of whom stayed for a couple of days, and some for weeks. We taught them how to tie the tie, dance “drmeš” or bargain on “Hrelić”. Apart from the active promotion of Croatian culture, especially Zagreb student life, we have organized many encounters with domestic students with topics of higher education, European integration etc. We take care of our members and their growth is of great value for us. We accept new members throughout the whole year and we give them an opportunity to choose their area of interest. Our members were and still are members of many projects and working groups of AEGEE-Europe as well as some Committees.

A-Brescia: We are an amazing and energised group, our mascot is a lioness called Pota which is a word in our dialect that means basically everything and nothing at the same time. 

What are some of the most memorable moments you’ve had in your local?

A-Zagreb: This year has been special for AEGEE-Zagreb. We have organized two European events, NWM Zagreb: A Million Hearts, A Million New Ideas back in March and Sailing the Croatian Dream vol.3 in August. The NWM was successfully organized just at the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic and we were so glad that it actually happened, especially considering the new circumstances happening in the whole world. As for the Sailing event, the organization was a real challenge. At some point, we were thinking about cancelling it, but as the situation in Croatia got better, and participants really wanted for it to happen, we decided to proceed with the organization, and now we are thrilled we did. It was pretty amazing to actually feel the AEGEE spirit again, after quarantine and all the things happening in the last few months. So the highlight of this year was, in our opinion, the Sailing event. It was incredible to see all the happy faces of our participants on the first day of the event. They were all so excited because they knew that they were finally being able to do something fun, adventurous and amazing. At the end of the day, that was the reason why we organized it. And no pandemic could stop us.  

A-Brescia: Our most memorable moment has been without any doubt, our last event BriXtreme, the participants were amazing and even if the virus was something we had to worry about it didn’t stop us from having the best time of our life.

What has been the key to your success? In which areas have you needed more help and development?

A-Zagreb: The key to our success is definitely our motivated members. We are really happy that, even after the pandemic and the earthquake, we are still going strong. Or maybe stronger than ever. And that motivates us even more. We are a family that no situation can break, and that makes us really proud. So we would like to thank all of our amazing members, organizers and helpers for everything that they did this year, and in the previous years. Because without you, we wouldn’t be where we are today. AEGEE-Zagreb has had its ups and downs, but we are currently struggling to find new motivated and active members to continue the amazing work of previous members and board. We are hoping to recruit new potentials to continue the good practices and bring new ideas for future projects. 

A-Brescia: Our key to success has been of course our motivated members and their energy. We had to find something they were interested in taking an active role in and as expected they did an amazing job. We put most of the effort this year in HR and we are trying to create a bigger group of active members and friends.

Some words of wisdom to other locals?

A-Zagreb: Don’t be afraid to organize new activities. It can be a challenge, especially in times like this, but it’s worth it. AEGEE is all about developing a better future for all of us. Enjoy it, do the things that you like to do and cherish this experience! AEGEE is one big family that stays together and that makes us strong. Virtual kisses and hugs from Zagreb. Stay safe! 

A-Brescia: Don’t be afraid to try, trust in yourselves and the people near you, and you will be capable of doing great things.