Europe on Track is a project run by young volunteers who aim to raise awareness, to create a space for discussion and to capture the opinions of youth in Europe on important social issues. Thanks to Interrail, the  ambassadors in teams of 3 (one videographer, one photographer and one interviewer per team) will travel by train across 20 countries in one month to deliver workshops, interview young people and organise events in cooperation with 200 volunteers from 30 cities in Europe. Let’s take a closer look at this amazing project!

The AEGEEan: What is your definition of Europe on Track? 

Erifyli and Ola: For many people Europe on Track is the most exciting AEGEE project, also quite often called the “dream” one. The idea is that selected ambassadors travel by train across Europe for one month to deliver workshops, interview young people and organise local events in cooperation with AEGEE antennae about the main topic of each edition. But the aim of Europe on Track is not only to travel and have fun but above all to raise awareness, to create a space for discussion and to capture the opinions of youth in Europe on important social issues while having an amazing time and connecting different parts of our continent (or even further!). This is an unbelievable journey for everyone involved in the project – ambassadors, project team and local organisers. One month full of adventures, events with great content and visible outcomes.

Tell us more about the project’s past achievements. 

Erifyli and Ola: We are working now on the fifth edition of Europe on Track which means the project is already known by some AEGEEans (but not all of them and we want to change it!) and has many things
to be proud of! Each edition of the project tackled a different civic topic, relevant for European youth. The first edition of the project, launched in 2013, won the European Charlemagne Youth Prize which is awarded annually to a project that fosters a shared sense of European identity and integration among young people.
Last edition, Europe on Track 4, was the winner of the Franck Biancheri Award and organised an amazing kick-off conference in cooperation with AEGEE-Budapest and the Civic Education Working Group. During their journey, the ambassadors were able to reach 1000 young Europeans in 26 different cities. After last edition’s success, many people became interested in the project and decided to continue the journey with Europe on Track 5!

How is the team being formed?

Erifyli and Ola: Our Project Team, consisting of 16 people, was already selected in June and has been working on the project for six months! In August, three assistants joined our team to help us in specific areas – Fundraising and IT. Since the beginning we can count also on our CD appointed member Maria, who was the Content Manager of EoT 3 and 4, so she’s a really great help for us! In October we found 34 awesome AEGEE locals which will prepare Europe on Track stops in their cities. The local organisers are a crucial part of our project because thanks to them we can engage different people and be present at universities, have meetings with local authorities, NGOs etc. Now we are looking for the last important part of the team – our ambassadors! This edition, we don’t need six, but nine travellers who will join Europe on Track. To have a bigger impact, we decided to create three teams, one more than in previous editions, and we are currently looking for the perfect candidates! If you know someone who’s inspiring, wants to have a life-changing experience traveling all around Europe while discussing and giving workshops about Sustainability and Climate Change, share our Open Call with her/him.

How and why did you choose the topic for the new edition?

Erifyli and Ola: Firstly we collected ideas from the network. Then we split inside the project team into smaller groups and researched each of the 32 submitted topics: possible activities, grants, cooperation, funds, etc. It took us more than one month to select the final one! The topic of ‘Sustainability and Climate Change’ under the motto “Can you hear the ECO?” is extremely important these days! We are dealing with an environmental crisis caused by irresponsible human behavior but we don’t want to only talk about it, we want to take action. That’s why we will make our project CO2 neutral, we will plant trees (also in your name if you donate to our crowdfunding campaign) and we will gather opinions of young people and inform them about how to act and how to have an impact on the Earth.

What plans do you have in store?

Erifyli and Ola: We said in the beginning that we will take Europe on Track to the next level and so far we think we are doing it! Three routes, nine ambassadors, 34 hosting locals and our crowdfunding campaign are just the beginning of big surprises. We are focusing now on the Open Call for ambassadors and the crowdfunding campaign. Then we will work closely with locals to prepare high level and contentful events and to make them use the opportunity to be a part of big European project. We are also planning our kick-off conference in Thessaloniki and the Environmental Action Week. We are constantly working on Fundraising and External Relations. We hope to reveal some more big surprises very soon!

Who can become an ambassador of Europe on Track 5?

Erifyli and Ola: First of all, we are looking for people for specific positions: photographer, videographer and blogger. Also, we don’t mind if you can do two or all things, in the end you always have to choose one role!
We want to find people who are inspiring, have experience in travelling and delivering workshops as well as knowledge about Sustainability and Climate Change. You need to be open-minded, responsible and, what’s very important, resistant to stress and physical fatigue. Travelling for one month, sleeping in trains, changing place every two or three days can be tiresome and we need to be sure that our potential ambassadors are prepared for it. And in the end, we are looking for candidates with initiative who will make this trip an unforgettable
experience both for themselves and everyone involved in the project.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Erifyli and Ola: We think that what makes this edition special is that we have so many extremely motivated people working on the project and we are really aiming big! Our project manager, Jorge, was an ambassador of EoT4 and has a lot of experience so he always pushes us to do more, think out of the box and do things that have never been done before like having three teams or the crowdfunding campaign. We had a live meeting in Brussels in October and the atmosphere inside the project team is just great! Although the most important thing is that we really want to bring Sustainability and Climate Change closer to AEGEE and young people.

Our initiative is needed and we, as Europe on Track, want to act and help the planet as much as we can. And with our motivation and your help we believe we can do a lot!

Are you curious to find out what young people really think about Sustainability and Climate Change? Are you passionate about travelling? Do you like giving presentations and workshops? Do you want to spend one month doing all of these around Europe?

Then join Europe on Track 5!
Become an #ambassador! We are looking for photographers, videomakers and bloggers/interviewers who wish to travel for one month and bring the topic of sustainability and climate change closer to European youth. You can find Open Call for ambassadors here:bit.ly/ambassadorEOT5
Support our #crowdfunding campaign! Together with Youth 4 Public Transport we will measure our carbon footprint and plant enough trees to make our project CO2 neutral. We need your help for that! Check out our perks and more about our project from the 10th of November.
Organise and participate in local events! You can get involved in organising activities connected with Europe on Track during our Environmental Action Week, or during the route of our ambassadors. You’ll see the list of events on our website soon.
Follow our journey in Social Media!

Facebook: Europe on Track
Instagram: www.instagram.com/europeontrack/
Youtube: Europe on Track https://goo.gl/w1PCcv
Website: www.europeontrack.org

Written by Aliona Sytnyk, AEGEE-Berlin

Some of you have doubtlessly been following, and maybe even waiting for this for a long time, but finally we’re happy to say that we’re going to launch (again) this amazing project from AEGEE-Europe. Of course, we’re talking about Europe on Track which will debut with its 3rd edition starting in Brussels on the 20th of April, and finishing on the 20th of May at Agora Bergamo. Sounds amazing, right? Keep on reading to get to know more about this project’s edition and the project coordination team members!

In the first edition, the project had won the European Charlemagne Youth Prize in 2013, because of its aim to capture youngs’ vision and wishes for Europe. Now, six lucky ambassadors divided in two teams will travel throughout Europe taking part in AEGEE events, interviewing youngsters, documenting the whole trip and delivering sessions about the main topic of this edition: Borderless Europe.

Besides this main topic, there is also room to discuss about several other subtopics. The project collaborates with the Civic Education Working Group preparing sessions and creating a common background knowledge from which we can discuss about the findings of the present and the future of a Borderless Europe. However, the main goal of the project is to raise understanding and create a constructing and vivid debate by fostering the exchange of ideas, opinions, to reflect on what is happening now and to forecast what we want for Europe in the future.

The project ambassadors will record all the opinions, ideas, proposals and findings that will be generated with the hosting locals and participants during this intense one-month trip. At the end of this railway adventure, all the results will be presented at the Spring Agora Bergamo and to the European Commission later in this year. Hopefully, lots of inspiration and thoughts will come up from young people all over Europe.

Empowering youth is essential for shaping its future, with the help of civic education in building a common and borderless Europe. And is there any better example of understanding Borderless Europe than travelling all around Europe by train and exchanging opinions with other Europeans?

While open calls for locals and ambassadors have been launched recently, for the last three weeks the project coordination team has been secretly working hard to make this possible.

Réka Salamon, Vice-President and Project Manager of AEGEE-Europe, is the project manager. But she won’t be alone with this. Those who are taking care of the PR of the project are: Ksenia Lupanova (AEGEE-Moskva), Architecture student and former PR of the Summer University Coordination Team; Héctor Larraz (AEGEE-Zaragoza), General Motors maintenance foreman and Audiovisual Communications student; Oğuz Tosun (AEGEE-Ankara), Environmental Engineering student and former PR- director of his antenna.

Managing the content we have: Sofia Lobakina (AEGEE-Voronezh), currently living in Napoli studying Social Sciences and Communications; Viktoriia Leonenko, former Secretary of AEGEE-Kyïv and External Relations/University teams leader of Agora Kyïv 2015; and María Ballesteros (AEGEE-Bruxelles), Translator and Interpreter and Political Science student, currently working in the Revision Commission of her antenna and living in Paris; 

The route will be planned by Tola Akindipe, not an AEGEE-member (yet), working as a compliance officer in Lisbon and running the Refugees Welcome there; Nicola Guida (AEGEE-Napoli), Architecture and Building Engineering student, involved very actively in AEGEE for several years, both in the local and European level; Alp Güvercin (AEGEE-Utrecht), Spatial Planning and Urban Design student.

As you can see, the PCT is consisting of a great variety of nationalities, backgrounds and working specialities. However, that doesn’t make it harder to work all together, but it’s being totally the opposite: we are working hard to make Europe on Track 3 awesome.

You can apply for Ambassador here or apply as a hosting local by sending your applications to europeontrack@aegee.org until March 23 (23:59 CET).

Written by María Ballesteros Melero, AEGEE AEGEE-Brussel/Bruxelles

Last time The AEGEEan spoke about the Europe on Track (EoT) project was in October, when the open call for the project manager was issued. Réka Salamon (AEGEE-Aachen/AEGEE-Debrecen) was choosen for the second time to be the coordinator of the project, together with Rocío Leza (AEGEE-Brussel/Bruxelles) and Turgut Tosun (AEGEE-Ankara). Last year the project won the European Charlemagne Youth Prize, so the AEGEEan was interested to learn more about the second edition starting this April.

EoT progress meeting in Spring Agora Rhein-Neckar 2013

Europe on track was the most successful project of AEGEE-Europe in 2012. Six young ambassadors travelled around the European continent by train: from Belgium to Spain, Italy and the Balkans. The ambassadors were divided in two teams, each of them following their own route. There were three topics on which the ambassadors interviewed the young people they met: youth participation, sustainability and enterpreneurship.

Last October Réka Salamon was chosen for the second time to be the project manager. “EoT is probably one of the greatest achievement of my life. It is like my baby, I hope I don’t sound too emotional.” – she said. “I saw all the potential and the success it achieved, but I also saw all the flaws, so I will do my best to correct them in this edition with the rest of the Coordination Team.”

Topics of EoT 2014

This year the topics are going to be very different. “While choosing the main topics of this year’s edition, we wanted to take into account not only general youth issues, but also current events so one of the main topics is going to be ‘Mobility’.” – explains Réka. “We believe the newly ratified ‘Erasmus+’ program is going to have a great impact on youth for the upcoming years, so with the coordinators and Comité Directeur (CD) we decided this would be one of the topics. We also want to focus on the active involvement of young people in the decision-making processes on a higher level and help the Y-Vote project to spread the word about the European Parliamentary Elections. Thus we decided to choose this as the second main topic of the project.”

Next to these topics the ambassadors will also touch upon other topics on which AEGEE will be working according to the new Strategic Plan, like ‘youth mobility, youth employment, civic education and even EU neighborhood policy’.

EoT Route 2014

The draft routes of the travellers

These are not the only changes in the program. Of course the routes won’t be the same, even if a lot of locals who hosted the project last time applied again. The responses and the final route showed that the Network is interested in the project and wants to participate.

Germany, Italy and Greece were the three countries with most applications from locals. With three applications from Greece, the plan is to bring one of the team straight to Spring Agora Patra, and because Greece is starting its semester of Presidency of European Council, ending in Patra will be even more meaningful. This year the plan is to send a team of ambassadors to Riga and to Kyiv as well, due to the great interest from the locals and to the possible impact an EoTconference can have in these cities.

However, there were also surprises as well, Réka tells us: “We didn’t receive any application from France”.  The teams still need to cross it though, since there are stops planned in Spain.

The biggest Challenge

When asked about the biggest challenge of the previous EoT she replied: “The most pressing issue last edition was time. There wasn’t much time available to plan and implement the idea we had for the project. In this edition it is definitely an advantage that we had almost half a year to plan and arrange everything. Also the locals won’t have the pressure to organize someting on a very short notice.”

Apart from the timing, the last time, the project lacked external financial support to cover the costs of ambassadors for taking nighttrains and making reservations. This year the CD and the Coordination Team found a solution. “Last time we had the InterRail passes and we relied upon the network” (for food and accommodation ed.) Réka explains. “This time we have applied to the Open Society Foundation for grants. Now we can also financially support the locals and travellers for the costs of their accommodation.”

Selection of Ambassadors

A thing that raised some controversy last time was the fact that there was an opportunity for non-AEGEEans to participate in the project. Réka explains the reasons for this decision as follows: “in AEGEE we tend to live in our own ‘bubble’, seeing things from one certain perspective. These people can bring a fresh new insight and a different kind of approach to the project and the discussions.”

“But because after all, the ambassadors who, at the time, were not members of any  local eventually joined AEGEE, the Coordinators and CD decided to again open the applications for non-AEGEEans in this year’s edition.” (However the downside is that you know less about these participants and it has been proven difficult to check the skills and experience they put forward in their application, Ed.). You can meet the ambassadors of the project in the following link.

Réka Salamon is known to be involved in many projects and committees and she’s never hid her plans to run for the Comité Directeur during Spring Agora Patra. Being so involved in AEGEE and at the same time preparing her candidature could be difficult but Réka is sure she can manage. “I have learned how to manage my time effectively and even if April is going to be the most intense month for the project, I believe that if everything is going to be ready on time, I don’t see any obstacles in the way of my candidature for President of AEGEE-Europe.”

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Venezia