While everybody is preparing for Agora Zaragoza, there is another important meeting taking place directly after the big statutory event, namely the European Level Meeting. It took place for the first time one year ago after Agora Budapest, and The AEGEEan used the opportunity to interview Beata Matuszka from the Comité Directeur (CD) about the idea as she was the one who developed it.

When did you get the idea of a European Level Meeting?

Beata: The idea came to me when I was still a Network Commissioner. As a NetCommie, you need to have a complete and perfect overview of the whole European level, you need to know the responsibilities and activities of each and every body, since whenever your locals need support, you are the one who can advise them or redirect them to the relevant body. It is best if you know the people on the European Level, since it is much easier to get in contact with them, ask for help for your locals, and basically this is where the idea was born: I wanted to provide a platform for networking and to facilitate the future communication of the AEGEE members.

Budapest was the kick-off, the trial version of the event and (maybe not so much surprisingly) it was a success, quite a lot of people came, several ideas were born and the people could get to know each other. Beside networking, we have other important aims as well for these European level meetings, such as best practice sharing, working on initiatives together in order to develop our Network.

In Budapest it has been called the Committees’ and Commissions’ meeting because we were thinking to start first with the bodies which are responsible for rather the administrative part of the Network management. In Mannheim the scope became broader and the European level meeting has reached its final form, involving all the Working  Groups, Projects, Committees and Commissions. Even if we had fewer amount of participants after Mannheim, the diversity helped us to reach even better results than in Budapest.

After these events, the one in Zaragoza is very much anticipated. In terms of logistics, I got a great support from the local organisers to organise the one in Budapest and also Mannheim, it’s not different in Zaragoza either. After the open call, we got quite some applications and I’m really glad to see that so many people are interested in strengthening the cooperation and working together to make the European level and AEGEE better! The programme will be drafted with the help of the participants, the topics which are important to be discussed according to them have been already collected and Fabian Brüggemann, who was moderating the discussion in Mannheim, has also been giving us great support in developing the programme to get the best result out of these two days.

Diana Tupchiienko, president of the Juridical Commission also agrees that the European Level meeting is important.  “It is time to put aside all misunderstandings and deliberate on the ways how to improve the work of AEGEE as one, undividable mechanism. During these kind of meetings you can get to know people who are or may turn out to be the future of our Association, understand others, share their opinions and share wise advices. And it’s great to have a new idea after a rich-flavoured cup of latte and have a plan how to put it into practice after a slice of a cheesecake. It’s definitely a great opportunity to learn!”

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

The AEGEEan is proud to present our new Member of the Month from AEGEE-Berlin, Hans-Peter Bretz. You may know him by his nickname Hape. Elected for the Summer University Coordination Team (SUCT) at Agora-Budapest, he has been trying something new this year and dedicated most of his summer to it. Travelling between summer universities, meeting new people and observing how all of the work SUCT went the year before turned out in practice. The AEGEEan just could not resist from learning more.

To start off, why is your nickname Hape?

In German people sometimes have double names, which is different from just having two names: they are supposed to be used together. Instead of always saying the full name, they are often abbreviated, e.g. Karl-Heinz to Kalle, or, in my case Hans-Peter to Ha-pe or simply Hape. My name is also completely out of fashion, I have never met someone with the same name who was younger than fifty. Even though Hans sounds like the most German name, most Germans do not really get “Hape” either. But there is a famous comedian called Hape Kerkeling, so they usually ask something like “You mean like Hape Kerkeling? Wait, is he also called Hans-Peter??”

What have you been doing this summer for AEGEE? We heard you were traveling quite a bit

That is true, the SUCT got some Interrail tickets to visit Summer Universities, so I took a three week long trip from Berlin on to the East and visited eight Summer Universities (SU).

Which summer universities did you visit?

I was at the SUs of AEGEE-Praha, AEGEE-Wroclaw/Opole/Lviv, AEGEE-Poznan/Gdansk/Torun, AEGEE-Warszawa/Riga, AEGEE-Krakow/Berlin, AEGEE-Katowice/Bratislava, AEGEE-Debrecen/Sibiu and finally AEGEE-Cluj Napoca.

What were you looking for in the SUs and what were you checking?

The main idea was to look at the programmes and how they realised them, and also to get some feedback by the organisers on our work and communication. Of course it is hard to tell if 100% of a programme is done when you are there for only a few days. But you can get a good impression of how the organisers work and also some feedback from the participants. By the way, it was quite funny how my presence was perceived by the participants at different SUs. At the beginning of my trip, I was at an SU where the group had already had some time to form and bond. When I sat down with some of them between programme points to enjoy a beer and some small talk and asked a general question about the SU to break the ice, they just smiled and made jokes how they would not let me spy on the organisers. At other times, some participants would see me as some sort of complaint box for every little thing they did not like about their SU. For me, it was also very interesting to see how the organisers prepared their SU, what different approaches they took, how they interacted with their group and how the general experience was influenced by the team of organisers, but also by the participants. Often, SUs are said to have their own atmosphere, and I wanted to see where that comes from.

Any favorite SU among the ones you visited?

Before my trip, I was afraid that 2-3 days at each SU would not be long enough to get a good impression. Later I was a bit surprised how much more you get out of a few days if you try to have an open and active mind and pay attention to details instead of just being part of the masses at an event. Still, the impression of a particular SU also depended on the parts of the programme I could take part in. In Prague, I arrived just in time for the city rally, whereas my day in Poznan was the relaxing day in between other days filled with programme (both were very nice, by the way). On a more personal level, the last SU of my trip, in Cluj Napoca, was great. My first SU and AEGEE event was the same SU, 3 years earlier, and it was still done by the same core team. I met some of the old organisers and even a participant again, and also I saw some participants from AEGEE-Berlin there. You could see how having so much experience in a team helps with all the little things in a Summer University. But I also want to thank all the other organizers who hosted me, managed to squeeze me in their planning and put so much effort in their event.

Did you end up going to any SU just for fun? That means, not as a representative of the SUCT but as participant?

I did not have enough vacation to go as participant, so I did not even think about at which one I could apply for.

We have heard you did your part for the Key 2 Europe (K2E) as well. What exactly did you do for it?

As in the last two years, I was part of the research and  statistics team. But other than last year, I did not have time to join the Concept Development Meeting, so my work was mostly to scan through the lists of events and to look for anything particularly interesting or fitting the themes of the K2E.

What are your plans for the Agora? Are you coming and what are your goals for it?

I will be there, and if there happen to be any discussions where I can participate, I will.

How is the SUCT in general feeling about this year’s SU season? Satisfied?

For all of us except Costas Deltouzos, it was the first time that we got this much insight into the project. We tried some new things like the SU maps, which I think, on average, were received positively, the thematic sessions, and the learning objectives, for which we have to wait for the evaluation. We also got the highest number of applicants in the last few years, so I think all in all we can be satisfied with the SU season.

What do you do in AEGEE apart from SUCT?

For the last year, the work with SUCT consumed most of my AEGEE work time and sadly I could not go to more events than the two Agorae. I do not have any position in my Antenna in Berlin, but we are a small local and if there’s anything to do, I help and participate as much as possible.

Planning to stay in SUCT next year as well or some other big plans ahead?

At several points in the last year, I was thinking about running for a second term, but my PhD study will only get more demanding during the next two years and I would like to focus on that.

Written by Olga Volovyk, AEGEE-Kyiv

The dates are set. From February 13^th until February 18^th 2014, AEGEE members will gather in Lublin to take part in EBM. An event organised not only by AEGEE-Lublin, but in cooperation with other Polish antennae. The AEGEEan interviewed the main coordinator Jakub Oleksy to get an update on the event.

 The AEGEEan: What have you been doing since the announcement at the Agora Rhein-Neckar that EBM would take place in Lublin ?

Jakub: We have done a lot of things concerning particular logistics, including finding accommodation and meeting places for the workshops, as well as developing promotion and a database of potential partners.

The AEGEEan: What are the next steps in the organisation of the event?

Jakub: The next step is to get further funding for this big project, including the Visegrad grant. We will also deal with the promotion of the project, social program and other organisational matters. Promotion of EBM will not only be through Facebook, but also through our website, YouTube and other media. In Zaragoza we will show up with a strong team, and do promotion there as well.

What is on most people’s minds when talking about organising a statutory event is fundraising (FR). Chema Rueda mentioned how the crisis is making it more difficult to gather funds and EBM coordinator Jakub Oleksy agrees. “Fundraising is a difficult task, but the scale of a project, a steadfastness of purpose, and eligibility make it easier than it would seem at first.”

Photographed by Roel van Engelen

Seeing that this task is so difficult, we decided to ask former Agora organisers to share their experience with gathering funds. Jannes Rupf and Alex Sieber from the organising team of Agora Rhein-Neckar were ready to answer all our questions.

So we asked them what the main obstacles were, when dealing with FR for Agora Rhein-Neckar and how they overcame them.

Jannes: The biggest obstacle was to find the first sponsors. Once we found them, we could use them as a reference and attract other new sponsors. But having none at the beginning was the most difficult bit.

Did it help that you had many antennae helping with the matter?

Jannes: Actually you would expect it to help having a lot of antennae involved in the FR, but as long as there are not any direct contacts to the companies it is quite difficult to do fundraising successfully.

Have you discussed this in the Knowledge Transfer to AEGEE-Zaragoza?

Alex: We had already discussed some issues during Agora Rhein-Neckar. There has also been some communication after the Agora, but I expect that most of KT will take place during the two months before Agora, as this is also the period during which we had a lot of questions to the organisers of Agora Budapest.

Following the interview with Agora Rhein-Neckar organisers it was time to go further back in time and talk with the main organiser of Agora Budapest: Márton Demeter. Márton gave us more details on the same topic but also how organising such a big event has affected AEGEE-Budapest as an antenna.  

Márton: FR does not only mean that there is a huge, rich and nice company that you just have to call and then they give you a pile of Euros. It is a bit more complicated: you can get cash, you can get products (FR ‘in kind’), you can get services, discounts, private donations and checks paid by someone else. We had all of these and thank God it was enough. It sounds easy, but it is not. Definitely not.

In the meantime the crisis is going on and the companies do not have enough money even for their own needs, so it was a really tough job. Usually if you have a list of 100 companies, you try to contact them, and 10 out of 100 will tell you that they might be interested. Usually 1 of these 10 will give you something. It is really demotivating that you get a lot of negative answers, but once you got a supportive one, that really rocks!

What really helped us was that we organized calling days, meaning the Agora team gathered in the office and called every single company we got in our contact database. Plus we recruited a lot of helpers for FR, not only experienced AEGEEans but also very fresh members! Any time we had any success in FR we posted it on Facebook so our members saw that we are doing something with tangible results and the very hard work of FR team members was also appreciated!

What did the Agora mean to your local financially?

Our budget was around €55.000. Around 50% was covered by the participation fee and the rest was covered by other sources.
In our partnership list we had non-governmental organisations, governmental organisations, universities, EU institutions, embassies, small local companies, state companies and also huge multinational corporations. Plus, it was very nice that we had private donations as well. The Agora team got a very decent amount of seed money from the board in order to start to organize the Agora and at the end we closed our budget with positive balance, which can be an indicator of success.

We hope the same will happen for AEGEE-Zaragoza and AEGEE-Lublin.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-Koebenhavn

Let’s face it: unless you are active on the European level, there is a big chance that you don’t really know what our different bodies are doing, what they are supposed to do and why they were created in the first place. The AEGEEan magazine is here to help and set the story straight. Up first – Mediation Commission.

If you check the current Member’s Manual, you will notice that there is no such body as the Mediation Commission. In its place, stands the Members Commission.  The reason for such a name change was the proposal made by the Members Commission Agora Skopje (2011) – Agora Enschede (2012). According to it, the name was tweaked together with its functions. Realizing that the MemCom was being activated already after the problem appeared, it was decided to make an emphasis on mediation, so that problems can be solved earlier and conflicts can be avoided. But let’s not get carried away and start from the beginning.

We work in a multicultural organization full of people with different values and ideas. Sometimes, conflicts appear. At times, they can be very proactive and lead to creation of a completely new and successful concept, however, at other times, conflicts end up being destructive. This is where the MedCom comes in.

According to the CIA, the MedCom is there for three things.

1. It is responsible for making sure that the Data Privacy Statement of the CIA is respected. Here they act as an ombudsman.

2. They can be officially activated by two bodies (NetCom, Audit Commission, JC, CD) or 10 antennas. This action results in a dispute, or “MedCom Case,” and is something very formal and serious. After a thorough investigation, they are allowed to take sanctions up to the point of deleting an antenna. However, their verdict can be reversed by the next Agora.

3. The last point comes from the new name – Mediation. This is a step taken in order to prevent a “MedCom case.” Since Agora Enschede 2012, the MedCom can now be addressed by any person or body of the network. This new function allows any member to turn to them for help/mediation in a conflict. Nevertheless, it is strongly urged that the member first turns to their NetCom as this is what they are there to do. But we will  cover the NetCom a bit later.

Agora Budapest elected a new Mediation Commission. Let’s give a warm welcome to our new mediators – Fabian Brüggemann (President, AEGEE-Düsseldorf), Hara Kogkou (AEGEE-Peiraias), Ermanno Napolitano (AEGEE-Catania), Maurits Korse (AEGEE-Enschede), Atanas Nachkov (JC) and Anna Gots (CD observer).

For more information about this AEGEE body, feel free to visit their page – www.commissions.aegee.org/medcom.

They can also be contacted directly at medcom@aegee.org.

Thanks for the photos to Gunnar Erth.

Written by Olga Volovyk, AEGEE-Kyiv

Have you ever thought about the effect you can produce with an update of your Facebook status?

A workshop delivered by Nikolay Kazantsev from AEGEE-Moscow covered one of the most important parts of peacemaking for conflict zones in Europe – resistance to nationalistic propaganda and information pressure from the official media, and declared a way that AEGEE members could contribute to peace building for creating a European identity.

It is natural for human beings to desire peace and people in conflict zones are not an exception. However, due to political struggles, people are counteracted by the nationalist norms that still govern their societies. These norms and core beliefs are accelerated by constant media support.  Academics argue that the influence of the media is especially strong in environments where a) citizens have little or no interest in politics and b) when they depend on a limited number of news sources[1]. That is exactly the case with conflict zones, when official (or national) media channels are declared as the only ones transmitting true facts (having monopoly on truth) while accesses to others are prohibited.

The question arises: could an objective picture of reality be transmitted through only one official information source, especially in conflict zones?

Comparison of press freedom around the conflict zones

In this research we took Press freedom index[2] to show the influence of media on conflict zones in European map (Picture 1). This index shows actual media transparency and determines how and why information is conveyed in different countries through various means.

According to Press freedom index national media is transparent when:

1. There are many, often competing, sources of information;
2. Much is known about the method of information delivery;
3. Funding of media production is publicly available.

Independent media is characterized by demonstration of facts and subjective judgement from both sides, leaving decisions to listeners that implies an active reception of information by an audience, developing their own attitude towards a subject.

Dependent media shows the picture from only one side, with multiplied argumentation and repetition to support this vision. Attitude in this case is developed not by listener but by the journalist.

As it could be seen from Press freedom index, conflict zone in Balkans (Serbia/Kosovo, FYRM, etc.) as well as countries of Caucasus region (Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia) suffer from noticeable to very serious problems in media transparency and information transmission.

Information access as a human right

Information is a critical resource for proper decision-making. European laws support the freedom of speech, and deprivation of access to information, as well as limiting the available sources, is an act of crime. Article 10 of European Declaration on Human Rights discusses rights that include not only the right to express or disseminate information and ideas, but also the right to receive information and ideas.

Paradox: However, still there is no law that punishes for this crime on the national level, especially in conflict zones.

What information is sent to us by the media?

In order to detect the ways of information distortion in the media we will decompose the notion of “information”. Information is a conveyed message that contains:

• Facts (data for analysis)

(includes answers to questions: who, when, what, how, etc.)

• Emotional “enchanting” (inc. hate speech)

Emotions distract listeners from rethinking and understanding. It may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group.

• Subjective judging (including nationalistic propaganda)

Subjectivity comes first of all from stakeholder’s ambitions.

• Politicians often include patriotic messages that allow them to quickly collect support and create a positive image.
• Military representatives are interested in long-term conflict and support fear of danger of a counterpart that increases governmental military spending etc.

The corrupted and emotionally enchanted information messages turn into propaganda. It is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position by presenting facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) and even mixing up with some truths the audience wants to hear. It is generally an appeal to emotion, not rational response (intellect). Further propaganda results may be used for manipulation of target groups.

South Caucasus and media influence

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has shown the variety of emotional enchanting and subjective interpretation that has affected youth from both sides, playing on people’s emotional reactions. Influence of rhetoric here is very intensive. The region of the mountain Karabakh (unrecognized territory and a sphere of interest of both countries) in Armenian media is presented as de-facto independent (or, in nationalist lingo, ‘liberated’ Armenian land), while in Azerbaijan media it is illustrated as occupied Azerbaijan territory.

This polarization of views is kept so strong to keep the status quo in people’s separation. In this moment no link is made to centuries-old history of common neighborhood of both nations in this area. The same rhetoric (but much weaker) appeared in Russian-Ossetia-Abkhazian-Georgian conflict in 2008.

“Ramil Safarov’s case”[3] – was another example of media influence that complicated political relationships between two Caucasian countries even more.

After the murder of Armenian officer by Azerbaijan officer in 2006, official media of both sides strongly opposed each other.

• Armenian media put an accent of cruelty and nationality on the case, describing vividly the steps of committed crime, making their residents virtual victims of murderer, and presented the crime as an act against the nation.
• Azerbaijan media replied with an accent on national honor and humanity: a crime left without detailed description however vividly the historical background was described, the murderer’s feelings, and the crime was argued (and sometimes explained) by superiority of keeping national honor and revenge for perished relatives in Mountain Karabakh conflict.

These opposite views cannot be either true or false; each of them has an argumentation behind it. However, neither Armenian nor Azerbaijan side received the opposing point of view due to politically erected information barriers between the nations. Enormous amount of negative emotions (hate speech, nationalistic insults, and generalizations) multiplied by subjective judgement achieved the goal: now even people that have never seen their “counterparts” are motivated to hate them.

How could they change the status quo and oppose the subjectivism?

The only way for youth in countries with weak media transparency is to separate the facts from ways of official interpretation and to seek for alternative facts to make decision personally.

So where do we find a reliable source of data?

• It is important to keep in mind that every writer, lecturer, reporter, and teacher has an opinion.
• An internet article that provides news but does not provide a list of sources is not very trustworthy.
• Movies are fiction (even movies based on real events are fiction).
• Memoirs and autobiographies are nonfiction, but they contain a single person’s point of view and opinions.
• Cable news, radio shows, and other media sources must make a profit. If you use these as sources, you must consider their many stakeholders and political slants. Profit-making potential can cause a book to be more scandalous and more sensational – and less truthful.
• National history books are only a collection of events when other nations were in conflict with “our” nation. There is rare mention of when nations were cooperating, fighting a common enemy, or were partners in trade and handicraft. However, when a book publisher publishes a book, publisher takes responsibility for its truthfulness.
• Works of literature and poetry could be used for broadening the understanding of other cultures and for developing tolerance. Usually, however, for obvious reasons, they are generally ignored or not spoken about.

What unites counterparts of conflict zones?

• Not politicians but civilians from both sides are actual victims of conflict, suffering from its negative consequences.
• Both sides are worried about the external influences.
• Both sides perceive poverty as the biggest threat to the region.
• A significant percentage hopes that their children will be better off than they are.
• Both parts live being passive victims of conflicts

Workshop Outcomes:

• Tendency to peace is natural for human beings; governments do not always express the views of a nation.
• Educated open-minded people have no problems in communication with each other despite any national differences.
• Nationalism has nothing in common with love to your country. It is a measure to achieve political goals and a hate towards other nations.
• There are NO good and bad nations, but different people everywhere.
• There is no monopoly on truth, no reliable information source but different data sources to compare.
• Separation of political level from relationships between people is needed.
• Regional identity instead of national identity could be a solution.

Personal recommendations:

–  Meet different points of view in European trainings (Youth In Action, Council of Europe Youth projects, Salto, etc.)

–  Try to understand opposing feelings and positions based on national classical literature and poetry

–  Find a social platform to discuss the views with opponents; regard topic without emotions

– Restrain from expressions which contain hatred against a nation: e.g. re-tweeting nationalistic thoughts of opponent’s politicians through your friends network (twitter, Facebook, etc.) that increases the risk of stereotyping and generalization

– Ability to separate and eliminate the propaganda from information is your part in peace-building

AEGEE contribution to peace building process

AEGEE unites open-minded students across Europe and has no national level. That is why it compasses a unique capability of solving national conflicts. The topic was started in frames of Eastern Partnership Project (EaP). In 2012, the project team has organised two successful events dedicated to conflict resolution:

1. Conflict resolution Action Day on topic “Lingering conflicts in EaP countries” by AEGEE-Groningen in May 2012. The main idea of this event was to give understanding on current situation in the Caucasus region to Dutch students. The event had a huge success as this information was new for ordinary students who never travelled to that region and had no friends from there.
2. Youth in Action project “Peace building in Europe” organized by AEGEE-Oviedo and EaP project in September 2012.  This event gathered 30 young people from Armenia, Greece, Georgia, Hungary, Moldova, Spain and Ukraine. This training was focusing on conflict resolution issues; participants had number of case studies on finding the best solutions on how to bring together youth from conflict zones.

Building a European youth identity by new members is impossible in situation of constant conflict between them. That is why conflict resolution within the whole network is a necessity of AEGEE, and particular peace building process in the Caucasian region is AEGEE’s zone of interest (Picture 2).

Project “Music as a common language for peace building among the Caucasus region” was one of the first initiatives developed by AEGEE members in cooperation with local partners – NGO’s in Russia, Georgia, Germany, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bulgaria and Turkey to create:

–  Series of charity concerts and trainings in public spaces (school halls, refugee camps etc.) together with musicians – representatives of confronting sides

– The support of AEGEE – network

 Aims and objectives of this project are:

–  Creating a platform of intercultural exchange  and long-life learning that brings together people who suffered through the conflict: civilians, refugees, etc. as well as AEGEE participants;

–  Non-formal education for AEGEE project team and local population

Peace building process needs you, dear AEGEE member.

Wake up and join!

Written by Nikolay Kazantsev, AEGEE-Moskva & Sandro Scordo, AEGEE-Roma

We are going a little bit back in time – to Friday, November the second, the day when the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) had its first official workshop in a statutory event. This workshop was titled exactly the same as this article: Are you stranger than a stranger? The word “stranger” when mentioned for the first time refers to you (potentially), and the second time it refers to a foreigner, or a person whose main crowd is “strange”. Yes, this workshop dealt with xenophobia; a serious topic, but also a topic everybody has an opinion about.
A brief introduction was given by Jonathan Mack, an activist of TernYpe, a Youth NGO for Roma and non-Roma youngsters. He explained the concept of stereotypes. After his welcome, he took part in the rest of the workshop as a participant.
Though the workshop was led by Marine Betrancourt and Maria Arends, HRWG-members Niklas Vaalgamaa and Anne Stikkers were eager to facilitate during the “World Café”. Our World Café consisted of discussion rounds in small groups, where they discussed four statements in turns. There were only a few minutes to discuss every statement, so people just had to share their first impressions. In the end, all the statements were summarized.

Statement one: “Stereotypes prevent Roma people from working”

“As all the other statements addressed in the World Café, it was vividly discussed,” says Marine Betrancourt, who facilitated the discussion of this statement. “Most of the participants agreed that stereotypes are not the cause of Roma people not working, but it is more a cultural thing where they tend to want to stay “special” and not fit in with the “normal” expectations. It has also been said that it might be about the lack of education, which prevents them from actually getting to learn about “normal” life – understood as getting a job.”

Jonathan, the speaker from TernYpe, brought an interesting input balancing the participants opinions. Although most of the participants tended to disagree on stereotypes preventing Roma people from working, some of them stated that they indeed thought that Roma people were prejudiced in their everyday life and that it could be one of the reason why they are not able to find a proper job.

Statement two: “Human rights are expensive, so they are not a priority in times of crisis”

This statement was quite radically phrased, so nobody really agreed with it. What people did think is that human rights are connected with financial matters and the poorer the country is, the harder they are to reach. On the other hand, Western countries spend a lot of money to have fair trials for criminals, which the participants thought to be a bit ironic. They also thought that human rights are absolute and we should not go backwards from what we have already achieved. They agreed on the financial influence though. Another point that was noticed is that there are some quite big cultural differences even among Europeans relating to certain topics in human rights.
Niklas Vaalgamaa led the discussion on this statement. He noticed that the process of discussing, in this case, was more important than the content itself. “Instead of the actual discussion result I think the basic discussion process was more rewarding,” he says. “First of all it made people think about human rights, but moreover it made participants understand that people think about things in really different ways and that sometimes it can be hard to accept or understand other people’s opinions. There was no arguing but hard debating,” he continues, satisfied.

Statement three: “People are immigrating to live on social support”

“Most reactions started with ‘That is not true!’ or similar remarks,” states Anne Stikkers. She made people think and debate about this topic. “Most participants did not feel like this was a big issue at all. Several people mentioned that it is unreasonable to think that people are going to leave all their family, friends, and home country behind just for the sake of receiving welfare aid from the government. Also it was mentioned frequently that people usually want to work – not having a job is depressing, not something positive. Besides that, it was recognised that in several Northern and Western European countries, this is a big political and economic concern (whether it is a valid one or not). It was concluded that in principle, everyone has the right to social aid, but people should prove that they are actually looking for a job.”

The participants thought that the government should help these unemployed people in some way, for example by providing language courses and making sure that employers do not discriminate based on national origin. In addition, this aid cannot go on forever. The  example of Sweden, where social aid for immigrants is provided for one year only, was mentioned several times. So in the end, even though most participants did not feel like this issue was a pressing one, they did seem to agree that social aid should be provided for everyone, but on a conditional basis.

Statement four: “Foreigners should learn the language of the country they are living in”

At first you might not expect so much discussion on a topic like this, but when we discussed it during our meeting in September, we discovered that there is a lot more going on than meets the eye. During the workshop it was clear that people thought quite differently about this topic. “There were quite some people thinking that it was okay, and even when I asked if it was okay if there was only one person at their job that did not speak their language and if they spoke in English all the time, for this group that was no problem,” Maria Arends says. “Also there were people who did not immediately disagree, but who thought that you cannot expect from someone to learn the language. Or not to learn the language, which was also quite a hot topic. Sometimes people expect foreigners not to speak their language, when they actually do”.

The opinions differed quite a bit. Some also mentioned that you should learn the language as a sign of respect for the culture you are going to live in. One thing everyone did agree on is that it makes life a little easier for yourself if you do this.

As you see, there is a lot going on in the field of xenophobia, and it is definitely not as narrow as you may think it is. This year, it will be one of the things the HRWG wants to focus on, so if you would like to learn some more, you will get the opportunity for sure!

Written by Maria Arends, Human Rights working Group

‘If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got’ was the motto the workshop ‘Awaken the vision’ started off with. The idea behind this slogan was that when you continuously take the same road, you will keep ending up in the same place instead of moving forward to a better or different place. This goes for AEGEE antennae and projects, as well as for individuals in general. Together with approximately 25 participants we explored  how strategic planning can be used in order to find a different road and end up in a better place as an AEGEE local.

After a short introduction with names and games, the basics of strategic planning were explained: terminology and essential questions. Four questions form the basic inquiries for your strategic plan. You start by establishing where you are now as a local. This can be done, as was suggested by a group of participants, by making a SWOT-analysis – by mapping your local’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. After this you question where you want to go. This will be your vision and mission, your long-term idealistic goals and your fundamental purpose as an organisation. Once you have established that, you inquire how you will get there – which aims, objectives and actions you need in order to reach your mission and potentially your vision. Especially the aims and objectives need to be formulated in a SMART way, meaning that they have to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. All these elements combined will result in a perfect strategic plan.

The case study during the second part of the workshop provided participants with an opportunity to put their newly acquired skills into practice. It was their task to work in groups and create a strategic plan for “AEGEE-Awesome”. They were provided with some background information on the local and its surroundings, as well as the aim of the local. The presentations of the different strategic plans showed that the participants had not only grasped the basic tenets of strategic planning, but that they were also interested in discussing approaches to the planning process. Due to time constraints the latter unfortunately could not happen. All proposals, however, could account for approval to a varying degree amongst the groups.

All in all, the workshop can be considered a success – all participants left with a feeling of satisfaction and comprehension, understanding the basics of strategic planning and being willing and able to share that knowledge with the people at home. The vision was definitely awakened.

Written by E.G., AEGEE-Leiden, and Mayri Tiido, member of the Health4you(th) project

It is hard to believe that already a week passed since the wonderful closure of the Autumn Agora Budapest. But all these great memories are still alive in our hearts and we are still so vigorously inspired and highly motivated to contribute to AEGEE goals and activities after participating in progress meetings, workshops, and simply talking to active and experienced AEGEE members. My colleagues from EDL team and I – now known as a new born Language Working Group (LWG) – hope fervently that our workshop, “EUROBabylon: Linguistic similarities and differences inEurope”, was also a drop of inspiration in your cup of AEGEE ideas.

Even though the workshop was scheduled for the last session on the last day of the Agora, we had a surprisingly high number of participants so there was no free place in the room at all! In total, there were 36 AEGEEans from 15 different countries, therefore we were able to cover a significant amount of European languages. And we would like to thank each and every one of you because, despite of the exhausting schedule at the Agora, we had a good dynamic workshop and a lot of fun together!

Besides presenting some facts about languages and language families in Europe, within the group we were trying to understand why we all speak different languages. Also we tried to find out the difference between “dialect” and “language” which is a point of numerous discussions and debates for many scientists nowadays. Based on our own experience we stated several influencing facts in order to define the boundary between these two sides: a possibility to get an education in a “language”, presence of publications and documentation in a “language”, defined and written grammar rules and people’s attitude towards the “language” that is often a historical matter.

As an experiment, in order to feel differences and similarities between languages in Europe, participants were given a small task that contained a text in a language they did not learn before and suggested to read it, guess the language and possible meaning of the text. The tasks were distributed according to the mother tongue of the participants in the way that around 30% received a text in the language from the same group as their mother tongue and the other 70% received a text from a different language group. 11 out of 18 formed groups guessed the language right, however only some could understand the meaning. Among hard-to-guess languages were Dutch, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Slovakian and Basque.

At the workshop we proved once again that Europe is a continent of huge linguistic diversity, a richness we should cherish and promote, despite of the fact it causes huge communication challenges. Learning foreign languages is very important for successful communication and integration as a result. And we as Language Working Group try to motivate young people to respect each of existing dialects and learn foreign languages because all of them are definitely worth it!

The LWG would like to thank Agora Budapest for giving us a trust to be a Working Group! We believe that AEGEE can make a difference and contribute to language learning and language policy in Europe!

Written by Nadia Shulga (Schneider), AEGEE-Berlin & member of the Language Working Group

We cannot express enough gratitude to AEGEE-Budapest for organizing such an amazing event.
Since it is so easy to name many things that are great about the events, we decided to focus on the frustrations a bit as well. After some thorough field research, we came up with the four most annoying things at the Agora. But remember, it just for fun, because we can safely and surely say that the positive things about this Agora overweigh the negative ones. Thanks again, AEGEE-Budapest!

1. Cueing
Cueing for food, for the toilets, for showers…. Let’s face it: nobody likes waiting.
On the other hand, these long lines are great opportunities for making new friends, or catching up with old ones!

2. Talking people
People talking when you want to listen to the speakers, people talking when you want to secretly take a nap during a plenary, people talking when you are trying to sleep off the adventures of the evening before at the gym and people talking when you don’t want to listen anymore (e.g. insanely long question lines when you actually want to leave the plenary hall for some fresh air).

3. Short conversations
The tight schedule often prevents us from having the long conversations you would like to have with your international friends that you have not seen in a long time. The longest conversations we generally have during the day, running from Plenary to Prytanium or workshop is “hi / bye”! Or, if you get lucky and get a few more minutes: “I am so tired / cold / hungry / all of the above.”

4.  Hearing damage
One of the most fascinating parts of the Agora is seeing people reunite. Friends you haven’t seen in months, or even friends from a recent event, are always greeted with the dramatic running towards each other, falling in each other’s arms and screaming something like: “I have missed you sooooooo much!” or “o my god, it has been aaaaaages!”. Somehow it always seems necessary to yell this in a tone of voice that is not only extremely loud, but also ten octaves higher than your regular voice.

Tip: from now on put in ear plugs on arrival day to prevent some serious hearing damage.

To conclude, we asked two participants to share their biggest frustration of the Agora. Despite that we love looking on the bright side of life, which is why we also asked them to share their favorite things:

Isabelle Grimm, AEGEE-Dusseldorf:
“There are not enough showers, which is my least favorite part. Meetings friends from previous events is definitely the best part!”

Stanislav Komarovskyi, AEGEE-Kyiv:
“I don’t like the fact that people who were not accepted to the Agora came anyway. The thing I liked were the three girls who just got tattoos on the arrival day in Budapest! The combination of people being so serious during plenaries and then going crazy during their free time is fascinating.”

Written by Maartje Natrop, AEGEE-Utrecht

Our reporter did some undercover research during yesterday’s Prytania and Plenaries. While secretly looking around, I found four things that many participants do while being under the falsely optimistic expression that nobody notices.

1. Sleeping
The most obvious one which we – at one point or another – all have done: taking naps during sessions. Some are more openly doing this by actually laying down on the floor in the back of the plenary hall, others just accidently fall asleep and wake up when the speaker raises his or her voice. You can recognize the latter group by a guilty look on their face, shifting around on their chair to prevent it from happening again, or desperately clinging on to a disgusting cup of machine coffee with too much sugar.

2. Picking your nose
Just one thing to say about this, no matter how subtle you think you are doing this: we actually see it!

3. Stickering
Always a fun activity: secretly placing stickers on the backs of the people in front of you. Your mission has succeeded if they actually walk around all day with another sticker of a Local on their back. Obviously, the more people you sticker, the better. Let the games begin!

4. Drinking
Here we have two groups again. First of all we have the “I have nothing to hide” group that casually drinks a half liter can of beer on the back rows. Secondly there is the “I am totally innocent” group that pours some whiskey in their coffee to get through heavy hangover mornings. You can recognize the latter by the intensely happy faces they have after finishing their coffee (and as we all know, that is not due to the great machine coffee taste).

Last word of advice: next time when you do one of these things, firstly check if The AEGEEan team is close by, you might actually end up with a picture in the magazine…
Written by Maartje Natrop, AEGEE-Utrecht