AEGEE-Ploieşti, Local of the Month for this September, is a small, but strong antenna who is proving that dreams can come true if you dream big enough. This fall they organised a Network Meeting (NWM) called Racking up milestones, that was a big success among participants and they do not seem to want to stop. AEGEE-Ploieşti is filled with AEGEE spirit, ready to build amazing projects in the future, and we can’t wait to see what they will do next. Here is our interview with Mihaela Tătaru, President of AEGEE-Ploiești.

The AEGEEan : Tell us a bit about your local.

Mihaela: AEGEE-Ploiești is a fairly young local, and I’m saying this because, in October, we celebrated our sixth anniversary.

How many active members do you have, and how do you keep them motivated?

Since our local became part of the Network of AEGEE Europe, the number of members has varied between 30 and 40 people. Now we have around 10-15 active members and I’m glad that in the past two years we had some members who demonstrated their motivation and devotion to AEGEE.

We proudly say that we have two members who are more active at the European level: Tedi Martinescu in Your Vision for Europe project’s team and Alin Georgescu, our former President, who was part of the planning team for Ideas Factory Leon, and who has recently been elected at Agora Chișinău to be a Network Commissioner. Furthermore, we encourage all our members to apply for the hundreds of events happening around Europe, from Agorae to New Year’s Eve events and get steeped in AEGEE spirit.

How was the NWM, from the planning stage until the outcome?

Organising our first Network Meeting was a big challenge and a really big adventure: from the time when we had to prepare the budget and the social programme, until we had all the logistic  arrangements done. We must say that this NWM was the result of an ongoing effort of our former President, Alin Georgescu (Main Coordinator of our NWM), to go beyond local possibilities and to overcome habits and the so-called “comfort zone” in order to have a broader impact.

Being part of the organising team, I can say that we learned a lot regarding time management, and the importance of having a strong team and the same vision on the event. The results, seeing that participants were having fun and enjoying the event, was really rewarding. This way I want to say thanks to every participant who took part in this Network Meeting.

What are the strong and weak points of your local?

We have six board members: Mihaela Tătaru (President), Florinel Tudor (Vice President & Secretary), Ana Rusu (Tresurer), Cătălin Avram (HR Responsible), Florin Tătaru ( PR & IT Responsible) and Cristian Ivan (FR Responsible). We all try to do our best to achieve the best, and we think that a motivated board is a really strong point of our local, so that we can motivate our members to be more active.

Moreover, another strong point of our local is that we have members with European experience and we are eager to learn from them.

Talking about weak points, we think that a small number of active members, the lack of partnerships and funds are some of them, but we believe that with hard work we will succeed.

What can you tell us about you future projects?

European Day of Languages is just around the corner! We are working to have a good event, and this is not all! Soon we will have a Local Training Course (LTC) for the newbies of our local. We have also set up board meetings, as well as monthly meetings to inform our members what course AEGEE-Ploiești is planning on taking.

Of course, it is well known that soon we will have our traditional project, the Christmas Charity Event. We are thinking of making an exchange with another AEGEE local. Because we are talking now about how the future looks for AEGEE-Ploiești, we proudly announce that next autumn we’ll host the Public Relations European School (PRES)

How visible is your local in Ploiești?

The main goal of the board is to increase our visibility in Ploiești. First of all, we want to be more active in our university, and this means that we are ready to have more local events (workshops) inside the university.

Secondly, as President of AEGEE-Ploiești, I attended several meetings of Prahova`s Youth Forum working group (its aim and objectives are the promotion of active participation of young people in the economic, social and cultural development of the county). Right now we are working to establish CCPT (Consiliul Consultativ pe Probleme de Tineret Prahova [EN. Prahova Consultative Council on Youth Issues]), which means Prahova`s Youth Council and I are, on behalf of AEGEE-Ploiești, the founding members of the council, if the initiative will be approved.

So this is a great chance for our antenna to be more in touch with the local administration and other associations (NGOs), having the choice to create some new partnerships and increase our visibility through this position.

Written by Violeta Croitoru, AEGEE-Iaşi

Last October was quite a busy month for all AEGEE locals with the preparations for the Autumn Agora upcoming. However, there were  locals still organising events related to the Action Agenda! The outstanding local among those was AEGEE-Ploiești, which worked hard to organise events related to two of our Focus Areas: Spreading Europtimism and Civic Education. Their events were a good example of the impact that can be achieved with only a few people. We spoke to Alin Georgescu to find out more!

ACT: Congratulations! ​As we would like to get to know this month’s winner, could you tell us a bit more about your local?

Alin: AEGEE-Ploiești is relatively a new local, but still we succeeded to organise five Summer Universities since 2012 with different topics and in partnership with three different locals. Due to the fact that in general we don’t have so many active members, we try to do our best and we are proud to be part of the big AEGEE family.

You ​have organised the European Democracy Promoters project. Can you tell us more about this project?

During two weeks, we organised workshops and presentations in five of the biggest high schools of our city. With these workshops and presentations, we made young people (and their teachers too) aware of what the European Union really means for us, what its values are and what benefits we have thanks to it. We tried to show them how the world would look like without European institutions and without the values that are protected by them. We also discussed about critical problems that we are facing right now, like the migration crisis, human rights, youth unemployment and lack of active citizenship.

Why did you decide to organise this project?

Last year June, we started a partnership with the Information Office of the European Parliament in Romania, which gave us the chance to organise the European Democracy Promoters project. As part of a bigger project organised by the Office, with activities organised by different non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from Romania, we decided to take action against lack of information, euroscepticism and misinformation, which are issues that young people face every day.

What was the result?

Well, the result was unexpected. We succeeded to have an impact on more than 300 high school students in two weeks. In general, our participants were young people with no clue about what the European Union really is. We offered them the opportunity to find out more about its values and opportunities. Moreover, some teachers showed interest in future collaboration with us, willing to organise more sessions or conferences related to this topic and AEGEE’s Focus Areas.

Why do you think the Action Agenda is important for the Network, and what would you say to locals that are thinking about organising something related to the Action Agenda?

We consider (especially after this project) that it is our responsibility to fight against the lack of information, euroscepticism and misinformation, because these are the problems that we face. People and especially young people have the right to know more about the European Union and its values, and to believe in it. I think it is our duty as one of the biggest interdisciplinary student associations to fight and create the society that we want to live in.

Do you have any other big plans for the upcoming months?

We decided to work more with the Action Agenda and try to have an impact on as many young people as possible. We will continue our activities in high schools and also, having new members, a team building on a Focus Area in order to have more people involved. Besides that, we are going to organising a Summer Course with the Human Rights topic, from the 2nd to 16th of July.

AEGEE-Ploiesti has certainly shown to the Network that it can be an example to other locals. What would you say to other locals that want to be as awesome as you?

We have to work together, as a group, as a family, in order to create a better society. It is in our duty to do so, sharing the same values and same interests, spreading the AEGEE spirit everywhere.

​Which sentence would describe your local and your event?

“Some call it Europe, we call it home.”

Written by Action Agenda Coordination Committee

The month of the European Planning Meeting has finally arrived, and in a little less than three weeks we will gather in Leiden, Netherlands, to discuss one of the biggest issues that Europe is facing right now. Many locals have been taking action already, organising a number of activities related to the migration situation througout the Network. We spoke to three of them to find out more about their activities.

In Ploiești, Romania, AEGEEans organised a conference in collaboration with the European Parliament Information Office carrying the name “European democracy promoters”. A report of the conference was sent to the Romanian European Parliament Information Office, and a while after, AEGEE-Ploiești was represented in Brussels at a meeting with three of the Romanian Members of the European Parliament. We spoke to main organiser Alin Georgescu to find out more.

ACT: What inspired you to organise this conference?

Alin: Well, the idea came up when we realised that we know nothing about refugees. What we read and see in mass media is 80% misinformation and most of the young people in our community do not really understand what is happening.

Can you tell us a bit more about your event?

We decided to organise a conference divided in two parts. For the first part of the conference, we invited a specialist, Prof. Dr. Dumitru Codita, to talk about the International Migration Convention and to make us understand what it is like to be an asylum seeker, and what rules and legal instruments would apply to you. For the second part of the conference, we invited Mr. Matei Barbulescu, a young freelance journalist from Romania, one of the few independent journalists in Romania. He shared his experiences travelling in two weeks from Greece to Germany with a group of refugees from Syria.

What was the highlight of the event?

The story told by Matei was very interesting. He told us how he met the refugees, how his journey went untill they reached Germany and which problems they faced. He was actually living like a refugee for two weeks. Even though he could pass the borders legally, he decided not to do so and to run and hide with his companions instead. His story made us understand the topic a lot better. It’s really different when you talk about a subject without having personal experiences, than when someone that actually was involved and lived like a refugee for two weeks is telling you about it.

What are the next plans for your antenna?

Due to the changes that Europe is facing, we want to work more on the topics of human rights and security issues. So, in our future activities we will include those two topics and try to have a bigger impact, both locally and Europeanly.

What would you like to tell EPM participants?

We are waiting for the results of this EPM, and we hope that we will work together for a better Europe!

AEGEE-Aachen members have been discussing the situation already since August and so far, two events were organised: a meeting where members got to “hang out” with the refugees and a Christmas party for refugees. We spoke with Malte Berrenberg, the main organiser of the events and board member of AEGEE-Aachen.

ACT: How did you come up with the idea to organise something related to the current situation with refugees?

Malte: We have monthly discussions about European politics. Last summer for example, we talked about the refugee crisis and the possibilities to help out refugees in Aachen. We concluded that there are many many things we could do, but we did not exactly how to start. The idea to organise a first meeting with refugees who are currently staying in Aachen came up, with the aim to let them tell us themselves how we can help them. For another meeting about the topic, many of our members showed up, so we were sure that we have support for the activities in our antenna.

Can you tell us a bit more about the meeting with refugees you organised?

For the meeting, taking place in November, we invited about 40 refugees and there were about 25 people from Aachen. The aim of the event was to get to know each other better, which is why we decided to play boardgames together. We also provided some nice snacks and drinks.

You also organised a Christmas Event. Can you tell us more about that?

A christmas tree, fairy lights, gifts and a lot of food – these traditions and cultural practices seem strange for many refugees spending their first Christmas in Germany. Therefore, we came up with the idea to introduce refugees to the ways we celebrate Christmas. Our aim was to focus on the similiarities between Christmas and festivals that the refugees knew, as cultural exchange is the key to a succesful coexistence. Our event was attended by 14 syrian refugees, for which we prepared typical German Christmas pastries.

What were the most memorable moments of the events?

Even though I was busy organising the meeting, I still have a  quite memorable moment. An older guy showed me some pictures of his family (he has seven kids) who are still in Homs, Syria. The situation of many of these people got pretty real for me at that moment and I did not quite know what to say. Also very memorable was that we found out that a lot of the guys did definitely drink alcohol (something we did not expect in this extent).

At a certain point during the event we were all sitting together and exchanging stories of childhood and everyone was laughing: it was an overwhelming moment reminding us how similar humans are.

What are the next plans for your antenna?

The next event we are planning is an Arabian night, for which we will invite some Syrian refugees to cook, sing and dance for and with members of AEGEE-Aachen. Also we will soon talk to another asociation in Aachen, which is also working on the social integration of refugees in Aachen. Our hope is that together we will be able to have a bit more impact and work a bit more efficient. Other than that, it might also be interesting to tell that the university is working on the cooperation on refugee aid between their asociations. They have employed Imen El Amouri, member of AEGEE-Aachen, to coordinate the different student organisations.

What is the message you would like to send to EPM participants?

This so-called refugee crisis seems a huge and unmanageable task to many people, but if we all do something small, we will see that we can handle it! Try to become friends with a refugee, organise a meeting between locals and refugees, spend one day a month with people who fled to your country or do anything else  concerning this crisis! Doing so, we will see that it is not only possible to integrate a lot of people, but that they can even enrich our society. People who fear other cultures will lose that fear as soon as they start getting in contact with people from those cultures.

The third local, AEGEE-Peireias, organised an event on this topic last month only. They were so inspired that they decided to go a step further and organise a Summer University on this topic too! We reached out to Mara Poniros, the main organiser of the event to get to know more.

ACT: What inspired you to organise this event?

Mara: The idea dawned on me when I realised that I would have to spend almost a month back home (I’m studying abroad). I thought to myself that instead of sitting around, I should do something more productive, like organising an event for my local. That’s how it began. My board embraced my idea, so we organised the event together. Both themes that we picked, the debt and refugee crisis, are pressing issues in our country (Greece), and the need to further explore and discuss them is urgent. I would personally say that what inspired me the most was the human factor. We tend to talk in numbers about the refugees and in economic terms about the crisis, but it’s important not to forget that these numbers have faces. We are talking about real human lives.

Can you tell us a bit more about the event?

The event lasted four days, with two full days of workshops, lectures and interactive discussions dedicated to one of the two topics. Regarding the refugee crisis, we first focused on the facts and then touched upon various correlated issues, while making critical judgements. We then gave the floor to one AEGEE-Athina member, Aristea Bismpiki, who has volunteered on the island of Lesvos and shared her experiences with the rest of us. Last but not least, Romy Cartiere from AEGEE-Amsterdam, one of the Content Managers of the upcoming EPM, introduced us to what will be done during the EPM.

What was the highlight of the event?

I think it was during and right after Aristea’s speech, when most of us, both organisers and participants, expressed our interest to actively volunteer for non-governmental organisation welcoming and assisting refugees, which is where the idea for our Summer University was born.

What are the next plans for your antenna?

We are really looking forward to our Summer University where we will volunteer on the island of Lesvos that has been experiencing a lot of incoming refugees. We hope we will be able to assist the incoming refugees and make them feel welcome.

What is the message you would like to send to EPM participants?

We hope EPM participants will implement all the amazing ideas they are going to get during the EPM in their local communities and our AEGEE network.

We as ACT also hope these three stories will inspire more members and that we see great initiatives as these spread through the Network in the future!
Written by Miljana Vulevic, Action Agenda Coordination Committee

Travelling to my first Agora in Skopje I did not know how things work during such an event.  I went to the AEGEE Fair because that seemed real fun even for an „Agora beginner” like me. People standing around and answering your every question sound like a good deal.  On my way walking amidst the excited crowd of the Fair, I met a smiling couple selling some kind of  little blue notebooks. They caught my attention and I queued.

A couple of minutes and some euros later I already held my own original AEGEE passport in my hands. I was not the only one who believed it would be a nice activity to collect stickers from other antennae and, in return, give a sticker from my antenna to them. This is how I crossed 12 borders in one hour. This almost sounds like a Guinness record. Needless to say, this little document also is a perfect conversation starter with pretty AEGEE boys  and girls who you otherwise would not know how to get closer to.

“Hello darling, nice sticker, wanna exchange?”  

You can try this trick yourself during the nex Agora, but before read some new things you probably did not know about AEGEE passport yet. Dane Linssen (AEGEE-Delft), the designer famous for his never-ending smile, will tell you how it all started.

How old is the idea of the AEGEE passport?

The idea of the passport apparently is some years old. Michele (Mickey) Turati from AEGEE-Brescia came up with it, but his local unfortunately did not have the resources to invest in it and put the idea into practise.

How did you get involved in this?

The idea stayed an idea for some years, and then Mickey told Network Commissioner Koen Berghuis about it. That is when the idea relived. Koen was wondering if maybe AEGEE-Delft would have the financial freedom to make such a big investment. So when Koen visited Delft, we had a beer together and he told me about Mickey’s idea. I was very enthusiastic of course and I worked really hard to make everything work. It was hard as I was short on time, just a couple weeks before Agora Skopje -and it was a very expensive idea, too- but it worked out!

It has become a huge success in a very short time. How many passports did you produce and how many have you sold so far?

We produced 500, and we sold them all! That is why we are working on a second batch of passports right now. We want to distribute them during the Agora Enschede and we are aiming to make new version better than the first version.

 Nice job, Dane! Is there anything you would like to add to the creation and designing of the passport?

I would like to add that the AEGEE passport is ultimately destined to be a gadget created by the network and for the network. I want to emphasize that AEGEE-Delft does not make a profit from the sales of the passports. Anyone’s input is always welcome and will be incorporated as much as possible. As a matter of fact, I am already working together with Andra Nicu from AEGEE-Ploiesti to get even better results.

If you like AEGEE passport or the possibilities behind it, choose it as Best Merchandise of the AEGEEans Choice Awards 2012!

Written by Kata Szabó, AEGEE-Piliscsaba