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

Last May, AEGEE-Lublin organised the Aktywator project (Youth Employment Focus Area) and First Aid training (Civic Education Focus Area). For this reason, they were chosen as an ACTive Local of the Month. We spoke with Martyna Jarosz – Advisory Board, Honorary Member and previous Secretary of AEGEE- Lublin, to find out more!

ACT: Which emotions did you have when you know that AEGEE-Lublin was chosen as ACTive local of May?

Martyna: Thank you so much for the nomination! We still can’t believe it. We were very excited by knowing that AEGEE- Lublin was chosen for this designation. We’re pleased that our whole effort is noticed. This gives us even more motivation to act.

Why did you decide to organise Aktywator project and First Aid training?

We decided to organise First Aid training for many reasons. Firstly, I always wanted to promote civic education, so I was the originator and the main organiser of the First Aid training, because is there anything more important in the world than human life? However, there may be situations in which it is threatened. We should all acquire practical first aid skills so that, in difficult situations, we can respond quickly and effectively to save lives. That is why we organised a pre-medical First Aid training to make Lublin’s society aware of the importance of stopping and saving someone’s life. Secondly, there are many such training available but little practiced. Our training was practical, practical and much more practical. [she laughs, ed.]

Aktywator project is a training event aimed at young residents of Lublin, whose main idea is motivation for various types of extracurricular activities and self-improvement. We decided to organise Aktywator project because it is already at its 10th edition. This project was held every year for several years, after which it had a three-year break. A year ago, it got another chance and was reinstated. We hope we succeeded! In addition, it is a good opportunity to promote our antenna in the community of Lublin.

What was the result of your activities?

The First Aid workshop was attended by 25 people. We heard only very good opinions in evaluation from the workshop participants. They liked the practical nature of the course, so I think our assumptions have been achieved. People learnt how important is First Aid thanks to this workshop. And most importantly – they can do it!

This year’s edition Aktywator project didn’t have a lot of participants, but the opinions about this project were very interesting and they want to participate in subsequent editions. Trainers received comments that they conducted very professional training. What’s more, we achieve new partners for cooperation, including a bakery, a cinema, a restaurant and a gym.

In the organisers’ opinion both projects were one of the best decisions we made. And from the results we are proud of it!

How do you inform your members about the Action Agenda/Strategic Plan?

Our members have been informed about the Action Agenda and Strategic Plan during main meetings, Local Training Courses and the general meetings just before both Agorae. We constantly encourage all the members to explore all of AEGEE’s communication channels and we inform them about every local activity. Furthermore, we talk about European events and inform new members about AEGEE-Europe.

Do you have any other activities related to the Action Agenda/Strategic Plan?

Recently, we organised a few Action Agenda activities, such as self-presentation workshops, workshops on how to effectively train, First Aid training etc. We love to talk about it during our weekly meetings. We strongly want to encourage everyone in Lublin to participate in Network Meetings, Agorae or European Planning Meetings, where you can learn more about the Action Agenda or Strategic Plan. In addition to this, you can meet amazing people with whom we develop exciting relationships and make an exchange of experiences which help us grow even further. I see that this year our members are even more interested in active activities, they have a lot of innovative ideas. I hope we will surprise you again soon!

Why should other locals organise activities related to the Action Agenda/Strategic Plan?

The Action Agenda and Strategic Plan help us to build a better Europe, because they set out an action plan.  These activities motivate members to actively engage in projects for common success and development. A Strategic Plan shouldn’t be understood as a restriction or an obstacle. We should all use it, since it is a help for us to work effectively. It’s our inspiration for our ideas to be realised. Every action is beneficial, even the smallest, because it will always leave its sign and will be an inspiration to others. In addition, thanks to the Action Agenda and the Strategic Plan, we can be described as a stronger local, we have goals and we set the course of action.

Do you have any tips for organising thematic activities?

The key is to take action -capital A! Most people do nothing because they are afraid of the problems or challenges that they will face or they are just lazy to do anything. But the way to organise activity is to make one decision. This decision is to ACT! The most important thing is to move on from one place to another without thinking about this as another obstacle to overcome. Then it’s just getting better and better!!!

You should also cooperate according to your plan, which will help you not to get lost during the organisation of a project. We should be open to help others, work with them, listen to ideas, activate and motivate them. This makes work more easier and enjoyable.

Remember! In organising activities, it’s not about being successful but even about getting the satisfaction of what you do, having pleasure and get to know fascinating people. 

Can you tell us a bit more about your local?

AEGEE- Lublin was founded in 1993, so this year we celebrated our 24th birthday. Every week we try to spend time together, both preparing projects and having fun. For us every new member is a new idea. However, every new idea can turn into a fascinating project. We get to know each other better organising such projects, and this creates a great atmosphere between us and generates a lot of positive energy. We learn from each other’s experience and work.

That’s what AEGEE- Lublin is all about.

We currently have about 15 very active members. That doesn’t stop us from doing brilliant things. We create this small Polish Antenna, but we have a lot of passion to work and new ideas to involve. We try to participate to events like Network Meetings and Agorae. The projects that we implement are based on the needs of our members and their ideas. We have a few events which have a continuation. We will not let them die. In May we prepare the Aktywator. This is one more edition of the training project – a few days of practice, workshops and training. Moreover, we want to repeat the First Aid training.

In a small but well-integrated TEAM there is power to work! That’s us!

Characterise your local in one sentence.

We’re the local of inspiration. Just like Lublin has a motto – the city of inspiration. You don’t feel it, unless you come to us.

Written by Elena Efremova, behalf of the Action Agenda Coordination Committee.

Their term starts today. A team of motivated people will officially begin their work on the 1st of August, and there are big expectations about them! It could be the new Comité Directeur (CD) 55 that we are talking about, indeed, but in this case we are referring to the brand new Working Groups, led by the newly elected Working Group Coordinators, namely Viola Bianchetti for Equal Rights, Álvaro González Pérez for European Citizenship, Svenja van der Tol for Youth Development, and Joanna Pankowska for Civic Education.

As most of you already know, the new Working Groups will ensure a fresh and successful start for the new Focus Areas of our three-year-long Strategic Plan.

Even though they still have not begun their term, they have already made history: they have received the highest amount of applications ever, with 62 applications for 28 spots (without counting the coordinators), and each of the teams have eight members (the maximum according to the CIA).

Furthermore, all of the Working Groups have already met via Skype several times and discussed their upcoming plans.  The coordinators have likewise met, in order to promote the team work among the WG themselves. One of the ideas that have come up from their meeting is the establishment of a unified newsletter and of Focus Area action months to take place in 2017/2018.

Before that, Working Groups will be present all around the Network during the NWMs and the Agora, and between September and October they will hold their live meetings. The Public Relations Committee of AEGEE is also working on the WG logos, in order to make them match and have common elements and show visually the level of coordination that wants to be achieved between the Working Groups.

That’s all by now. If you want to stay up-to-date with the news regarding the WGs, subscribe to our newsletter here! Rumors say that they are unstoppable!

Written by Álvaro González Pérez, AEGEE-Heidelberg and European Citizenship Working Group Coordinator

Special thanks to Stas Mahula, AEGEE-Kyїv, for the cover picture.

The Civic Education Working Group proved to be a consistent and hard-working group of people since the reform of the WG was accepted in Spring Agora Asturias 2015. The topic proved to be high in the list of priority in our organisation and in Autumn Agora Chisinau it was selected again as one of the four focus area for 2017-2020. With a new Working Group team kicking off on the 1st of August, it is time to look back at what the team, led by Aliénor Pirlet, Working Group Coordinator, did in the past months. 

Introduce your Working Group. Who is in the team? What are their tasks?

Aliénor Pirlet:  I am a Belgian student in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Leiden University. I joined AEGEE in 2015, I’m crazy about the intercultural atmosphere in our beloved association and I love travelling. I also like to take up new challenges, which is why I ran in Agora Bergamo to be the new coordinator of the CEWG. Besides that, I’m responsible for our newsletter and for creating new awareness campaigns.

Julia Hanesz: I am a Hungarian student from Slovakia currently spending an Erasmus semester in Paderborn (Germany) in International Business Economics. I joined AEGEE last spring to be able to participate to the SU in Warsaw organised by the CEWG. This is where I fell completely in love with AEGEE and Civic Education and decided to join the CEWG and become a policy officer of the WG. It was definitely one of my best decisions, I learnt so much about AEGEE, Europe, people and myself. Next to the policy paper, I am PR and responsible for the Quiz: ‘How civic are you?’.

Alexia Thomas: Belgian Student in Sustainable Citizenship in Utrecht, I am the Summer Universities responsible to collaborate in the funniest ways to make this summer matter.  I fell deeply in love with AEGEE and after becoming CEWG member I am now moderator of Society and the Environment Interest Group, subcommie and… who knows what the future will bring!

Evrim Emiroğlu:  I am from Ankara and I am currently studying in Economics at Anadolu University in Eskişehir. I have been an AEGEE member since spring 2012. Since then, I have been active with different responsibilities. During all these years, I always believed civic education to be one of the most important, if not the most important, aspects of our organisation. Therefore, I decided to join the Civic Education Working Group. I am responsible for network contact in the group.

Doro Harles: I am currently a student in Sociology and Psychology in Mannheim (Germany). After taking part to the SU coordinated by the CEWG last summer I was fascinated by civic education and wanted to work more on it. At the moment, I am doing an internship dealing with analysing voter turnout in Germany. In the Working Group I am dealing with organising Debating Competition and secretary work.

Daniela-Maria Maris : I am a member of AEGEE-Cluj-Napoca and finished my studies in Communication Science last year. This year, I’ve worked as Communication Assistant for the CD and I am now doing an internship at the German parliament. For me civic education is the only way we can achieve democracy. This is why I’ve chosen to get particularly active in AEGEE around this topic. I am part of the ECI task force and in the CEWG I am the external relations responsible and helped co-organising the Conference in Budapest.

Esther Hillmer: I am studying NGO-Management in Osnabrück (Germany) and just finished a three-month internship in Georgia. I became a member of AEGEE-Osnabrück in 2011 and joined the ECI task force last year. This work made me even more curious about civic education topics, so I was really happy to be part of the CEWG this year, for which I am the internal communication responsible.

María Ballesteros Melero: I am a translator and interpreter currently studying Political Science. I became a member of AEGEE-Madrid in 2014 and joined the Civic Education Working Group last May, as I believe civic education is the only way to achieve a real, long-lasting social change. I am responsible for the collaboration between the CEWG and the Europe on Track 4 project.

Bálint Toronyai: I am studying Economic Policy in Budapest. I became a member of AEGEE in 2014. I am particularly interested in civic education and media literacy as I believe it has an essential role in the formation of robust democratic societies. Within the CEWG, I am responsible for developing our workshop material and organising the debate competition.

What is the aim of the CEWG? Can you shortly summarise your activity plan?  

Aliénor: In short, the CEWG is there to help our network to achieve its aim regarding the Focus Area on civic education. At the beginning of each term, the new team members of the working group write a new Activity Plan listing the projects and activities they will be doing throughout the year in order to help to fulfill the yearly objectives on civic education.

Since our focus area has two aims, our Activity Plan contains activities to do within AEGEE on the one hand, and projects to do outside of AEGEE on the other hand. Within AEGEE, we chose to collaborate again this year with some antennae for helping with the creation of the content of their Summer Universities. Last year’s collaborations were a true success and we are confident they will be as fruitful this year! Next to this, we also organised the conference ‘Education for the Present, Democracy for the Future’ in collaboration with AEGEE-Budapest and the Europe on Track 4 project from the 21st to 23rd of April. More generally, we attend many events of AEGEE throughout the year where we deliver workshop, foster discussion and raise awareness about different topics related to civic education. Of course, we also develop many new material that AEGEEans can use whenever they want to have activities on civic education. Recently, we have created new guidelines for locals and have updated last year’s debating toolkit. We encourage locals to organise debates because it is a great way of using critical thinking, forging your own opinion and learning many relevant information on a (controversial) topic. This is why we organised a debate competition earlier this year. You can read all about it in the article of the AEGEEAN.

Regarding our projects also for young people outside of AEGEE, we are working on the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) More than education with the ECI task force and the Europe on Track 4 project to call for more civic education in Europe and foster discussions on the matter. We also launched a test on Facebook ‘How civic are you?’ for people to check out their civic knowledge. Currently, we are still working on an open letter for non-EU citizens who would also like to call on their government for more civic education in their countries. And last but not least, our awesome Policy Officer Julia is working hard on the policy paper dealing with the use of the ECI as a direct democratic tool.

Last year 12 Summer Universities chose to organise an event related to the Civic Education. Do you expect such a great participation also this year?

Evrim: We are having eight formal cooperations this year. This is less than last year but it is most probably linked to the fact that this summer, SUCT defined that formal cooperation means that one trainer is coming to deliver the workshops in cooperation with the local in order to ensure the quality of the cooperation. Currently,  every member of CEWG is working with one SU in order to create a quality thematic content for SUs.

Organising a Summer University is difficult, but organising a contentful SU is harder. The advantages of cooperating with us are that we are helping locals to choose the best topic for their SU. If they already chose, we decide which workshops need to be created and start working on it with the appointed person in charge of creating the content. As a method we try to be as fun and non-formal as possible to actively engage the participants.  

What is your policy paper about?

Julia: This year we are working on a policy paper about the European Citizens’ Initiative as a tool of direct democracy. In general there were already researches and discussions on this topic, about whether it is a relevant and successful tool of the European Union. Our aim is to examine it from a youth organisation’s perspective based on the experience with the ECI ‘More than Education’. You can also help with the research by filling the following survey.

The CEWG is very active. What is your secret?

Doro: There is no secret! Our “activeness” is coming from our super engaged and motivated members. Also, we did not start from nothing since we got a lot of support and inspiration from the CEWG of last year. We are helping and pushing each other in creating workshops, promotion material, developing new ideas, etc. There is always someone who can give you feedback and tips if you are stuck with something. This is also supported by our very good group dynamic: we trust and are honest with each other. In the beginning of each meeting we have a “weather forecast” in which everybody tells what are good and bad news lately and how are their feelings about it. We also like to laugh and have fun together which is helping in hard time. And that is also why we decided to meet each other for a fun meeting in Budapest before going together to the EPM in Zagreb.

What did you do at your live and fun meeting in Budapest?

Julia: We evaluated the work of the past few months, planned the next projects and had a lot of fun together. We had a chance to discover the Buda castle, the Great Historical Market, the Parliament, the Heroes square on the Pest side, visit the Central European University, and rest a bit at the Margaret island. Of course our Hungarian experience would have not been complete without tasting the goulash soup, the mákos guba or the kürtőskalács. We also cooked together a traditional food, the ‘lapcsánka’ or ‘tócsni’. Thanks to AEGEE-Budapest we had a chance to visit a few “Ruin Bars” in the heart of Budapest during the wonderful pub crawl organised for us. Next to all of that we also organised a signature collection for the More than Education ECI, during which we had many interesting discussion with locals, who happily supported us with their signature. It was a very productive and fun meeting! 

Do you want to add something?

Aliénor: If you enjoy reading about our activities and know all about the latest update of our workshop materials, please subscribe to our newsletter. You can also read the ones already published. And do not hesitate to contact us at info@civiceducation.eu!

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona

One year as Projects and Communication Director at the AEGEE House in Brussels, and Joanna Pankowska from AEGEE-Warszawa has no intention to pause. During busy preparations for Spring Agora Enschede we talked to a very energetic and inspiring candidate for Civic Education Working Group Coordinator.

The AEGEEan: Joanna, after being in the Comité Directeur, members often take some time for themselves, but this is not your case. What keeps you motivated to lead a working group?

Joanna: Being a member of the Comité Directeur is a very different experience than working in European Bodies for one simple reason – next to the tasks that you are passioned about there is also plenty of tasks that are not necessarily the things you came to AEGEE for. Don’t get me wrong: I am thankful for the experience and I definitely learnt a lot while being in Brussels, but my true passion was and still is civic education, and that is why it feels natural to continue the work I started while being member of the Working Group in 2015/16 and continued as CD appointed responsible towards the education portfolio.

Why do you think civic education has a fundamental impact on society?

Quoting the words of Barack Obama: “The most important office in a democracy is the office of citizen“. Every office requires preparation and civic education is supposed to prepare us for the role of citizens. Currently, we are witnessing insufficient and incoherent teaching throughout Europe of essential civic competences, i.e. the knowledge, skills and attitudes that are needed to act as a responsible, active and democratic citizen. I believe that we need to address this issue first before we can move forward with any other social issue.

CEWG has two big aims: non-formal and formal civic education. What projects have you been working on in these fields?

My interest in the topic precedes my membership in AEGEE. As a scout and a volunteer in numerous Polish NGOs, I have always focused on the topic of inclusiveness and civic education. I took part in a Youth in Action study session, learning about the Swedish education system, and I coordinated a working group under The Polish Student Parliament on the proposals of changing the Polish educational system and many other similar initiatives. When joining AEGEE, I focused similarly on civic education, firstly by joining the Working Group on Civic Education in 2015/16 and being a driving force behind the European Citizens’ Initiative “More than Education”. Being part of the Comité Directeur, I continue contributing to our internal and external affairs on the topic of civic education, and education more generally. Throughout the whole year I have been working closely with the Lifelong Learning Platform, which is one of the most important education oriented organisations in Brussels. Lately, I have also been selected as a member of the expert group on education within the European Youth Forum.

What are the usual task of the CEWG? Describe a typical busy day of CEWG or a live meeting.

It depends on the new team and how we divide the roles. Two years ago, we have been a relatively small team, so the collaboration was smooth, but also the workload was quite extensive. This year, I observe that the whole team of the CEWG (9 people) worked very hard and they also managed to create a very flat and cooperative structure for the team that allows people to work in smaller subteams, which means that for every member the work looks a bit different. Live meetings are there to set up long terms plans and responsibilities. Depending on the capacity of the team, the minimum plan is to fulfill the objectives of the Action Agenda and if the team wants to do more – the sky is the limit. If Agora approves the current objectives proposals, it seems we will be focusing on differences between political systems, visits to high schools, critical thinking and ECI follow-up.

You were among the promoters of the European Citizens’ Initiative “More than Education”. What do you think is its biggest strenght and its biggest weakness?

The weakness is quite obvious – we did not do a classic campaign for it because we never found proper human and financial resources to run a campaign. None of the people in the team was interested in doing so and also several open calls and Erasmus+ openings did not attract people to run it. I myself few times regret that due to my Comité Directeur responsibilities, I could not take a more active role in it. This reflects in the numbers of signatures. Nevertheless, I believe the ECI does bring a lot of value to AEGEE. It is the theme of Europe on Track, which is proving to be a very successful edition, it has been reflected in the Budapest conference, the hitchhiking competition “Thumbs Up for Civic Education” preparation is going very well. It was the main topic of our activities at YO!Fest, University on Youth and Development in Mollina and European Ideas Lab – Greens. We established many contacts that are valuable not only for the ECI itself but also for future collaborations on the topic of civic education (Animafac, European Civic Forum, European Humanist Federation, Association for Teacher Education in Europe, Network European Citizenship Education, Vote&Vous, Bosch Foundation and many more). María Ballesteros Melero (AEGEE-Madrid) was a speaker on behalf of the ECI at the “1st European Conference on Education and Democracy” organised by Fundación Cives in Spain. Thanks to the ECI we have established very close relations with the European Economic and Social Committee. I was invited to speak at the ECI ad hoc group meeting as well as at the ECI day. We are also collaborating with EESC on the upcoming roundtable event: ‘Mind the gap – how to strengthen civic education for all throughout Europe’. Are we reaching one million signatures? No. Do we put civic education on political agenda? I think so.

Can you tell us something more about your cooperation with the Lifelong Learning Platform?

I have been a link between the Platform and AEGEE. I have attended numerous meetings and events but also I have been in touch directly with the Director of LLLP, discussing the possibility of the creation of a new working group within the LLLP on the topic of civic education, which will be led by AEGEE. This conversation has not been finalised yet, but right after Agora I will be attending the General Assembly of LLLP, where it should happen. We are also discussing the possibility of co-organising an event at the European Parliament together with Lifelong Learning Platform and other partners in autumn. LLLP is one of the important partners for AEGEE, not only because it is the most relevant stakeholder in European civil society when it comes to education, but also because AEGEE has been one of its founding organisations and it is important to maintain our active role within the platform. Contribution to the processes and consultations within the Platform allows us to be part of bigger European discussion at the tables that we might not be invited on our own. Taking into consideration all the knowledge and experience I have gained this year, I hope I can continue to be the link between AEGEE and LLLP as a Working Group Coordinator.

How would you pursue cooperation with other Working Groups? Do you already have ideas in mind?

I have numerous ideas but those have to be of course agreed with all of the Working Groups. The general though is to coordinate actions when it comes to AEGEE calendar, so to have months dedicated to each of the focus areas (the idea was born during the drafting part of EPM and does not belong to me). Another idea would be to collaborate on communication towards the Network – for example sending open calls for members of WGs in a coordinated matter or putting together all of the publications and materials from WG that locals can use and have common promotion of them. Last but not least – active communication between groups, sharing best practices, co-creating events and much more – depending on the capacity of all of the groups. I imagine all of the working group coordinators to meet before the summer to discuss a collaboration strategy for the whole year.

You can read her full candidature here.

Written by Aliona Sytnyk, AEGEE-Berlin

If you have attended EPM Zagreb 2017, you might have assisted to the final round of the debate competition organised by the Civic Education Working Group. The debate in Zagreb was just the last step of a journey started last year in November when Balint Toronyai from AEGEE-Budapest and Doro Harles from AEGEE-Mannheim, members of the CEWG sent an open call for topics. We spoke with them to understand how the competition went. 

Why did you decide to do the competition? 
Bálint: We participated in some amazing debates during the Summer University of AEGEE-Warszawa last summer. We experienced how competitive debating can improve complex and critical thinking in a really fun way. After both of us joined the Civic Education Working Group we decided to organise this competition to strengthen civic competencies and promote debating in the AEGEE community.

How did you select participants? 
Bálint: The application for the competition was open for every AEGEE member; however there were two conditions: the applicants had to be available in Zagreb during the EPM where the final debate took place and they had to apply in pairs (or pair-up with the other single participants) as the debate format and the winning prize were created for such teams. The applicants had to write about their motivation, debating experience and answer some other simple questions, but the true selection was coming in the pre-round of the competition.

Who were the teams? 
Bálint: Most of the teams were formed by people who already knew each other, with one exception where we matched two single participants. It was a really diverse field, seven different AEGEE antennas were proudly represented: Skopje, Heidelberg, Osnabrück, Nijmegen, Bilbao, Zaragoza and Ljubljana. It is easy to say that it was a truly European debate competition.

What was the structure of the debate? 
Bálint: There were two rounds of the debate competition. The pre-round was an online round, where the teams had to prepare video statements with their arguments and send them to us and to their debate opposition. This online way of debating was far from optimal, but it was a compromise we had to take for a Europe-wide debate. The best four teams of the pre-round qualified to the live final which took place at EPM Zagreb. The format of the final was the classical British Parliamentary debate, where two teams have to compete with each other both on the government and the opposition side. This complex way of debating makes it possible to approach issues from multiple angles. 

What were the topics debated? 
Doro: In the pre-round, there were three topics, in debates called proposals, debated on: “This house believes that (THBT) migration should be promoted in the EU”, “THBT an unconditional basic income should be established in the EU” and “THBT people older than 70 should not vote”. The topics were chosen from a bunch of ideas send from the Network in an open call for topics. The proposal at the final was “THBT referendums should be forbidden in national democracies” and fitted to the topic of the EPM “Populism and Anti-European Agitation”.

What was the reaction? Are you satisfied with the result?
Doro: The audience at the final was interested in the topic and the format used to bring the topic closer to people. They could also participate in it by voting before and after the debate which side they were on: for or against the proposal. After the debate, more people were for the proposal than before. In general, the audience liked the event. The participants could develop and practice their skills in public speaking during the competition and all managed the speech in front of a big audience well. We are very satisfied with the development that our participants made over time and that people were interested and not super bored by debating. About the result in the sense of the winners, we cannot say that we would have liked one time better than the other. We are delighted with the winners who are happy about winning the two interrail tickets.

Would you replicate it in other events? 
Doro: We were already thinking about it because a competition is a good way to show that debating can be interesting. Yet, we need to have a fitting event, time to prepare it and find a good prize for the next time. Maybe we are going to do it a bit smaller than this time. Nothing is settled yet but we are working on it.

Is there something you want to add?
Doro: Maybe people got inspired by the debate from EPM and want to organise one in their locals or somewhere else. We have updated the debating toolkit and people can find all relevant information there. Check it out!

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona

One of the aims of our organisation is to foster educating members able to think critically and outside the box, but at the same time to understand the political reality and society, therefore the importance of civic education. During the planning part of EPM Burgos in 2015, the idea to start a campaign to strenghten the teaching of civic education was first proposed and it later developed into the “More than education- European Citizens’ Initiative”. We spoke to Maria Maris, AEGEE- Cluj-Napoca and currently the CD assistant on communication, and she gave us a useful, clear and short guide to it. 

The AEGEEan: Why Civic Education?

Maria: For us, civic education means learning critical thinking, political participation and open-mindedness. Civic education is the attempt to teach and show people how the world works, so they can become active and responsible citizens. Also, AEGEE is doing non-formal civic education [she smiles, ed.]. Didn’t we become more active and responsible citizens because of AEGEE?

What is the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) ?

The European Citizens’ Initiative is the 1st and ONLY tool for direct democracy in the European Union! ECI means collecting 1.000.000 signatures in one year throughout Europe from at least seven EU Member States. People have the chance to participate directly in the development of EU policies. With their signature, citizens call on the European Commission to make a legislative proposal about a certain topic – in this case improving civic education in the whole Europe!

Why did you decide to have this campaign?

To put it clear out there: civic education is the way to a functional democracy.

We strongly believe that a democracy relies, for its legitimacy, on active and responsible citizens. We all know that at the heart of democracy are people. This should make it clear that a democracy can only function and be successful if citizens are active and involved in their societies. Teaching civic competences at school is crucial for a democratic society.

Civic education in Europe is currently insufficient and incoherent. Therefore, teaching civic competences should be strengthened and coordinated throughout Europe.

That is why “More Than Education” calls on the European Commission to set up a long-term agenda for coordinating civic education among EU members states, create benchmarks, offer space for exchanging best practices, strengthen financial support programmes for consultation and networking projects in civic education policy, organise periodic evaluation and, all in all, support member states in their responsibility of providing civic education. Shortly: bring all EU member states to talk and work together on civic education and make civic education more popular in the EU.

And of course… Because it is awesome!

The idea to launch an European Citizens’ Initiative  was included in AEGEE’s Action Agenda during the European Planning Meeting in Burgos in February 2015. Civic education is one of the four focus areas of AEGEE and starting an ECI supports the aim of setting civic education on the political agenda at all levels.

Who is part of the task force?

We currently have a team of 20 people that work on different tasks and subteams. Maybe it is important to mention that besides external relations, PR, FR and so on we have the national coordinators. They are responsible for the strategy of collecting signatures, making new partners and recruiting and coordinating ambassadors for the ECI in their own country. Currently, we are looking for more national coordinators. If anyone is interested and want to have more information about it, please contact us at contact@morethaneducation.eu.

What can locals do to join this initiative?

Here you can find a useful document with all the guidelines for locals.

To sum up:

#WHAT – We want to put civic education on the European political agenda.

#CivicEducation – means learning the competencies, i.e. skills, knowledge and attitudes, required to be an active, democratic and responsible citizen.

#WHY – without education there is no real democracy.

#HOW – By collecting 1.000.000 signatures for ECI.

#ECI – The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) allows one million EU citizens to participate directly in the development of EU policies, by calling on the European Commission to make a legislative proposal.

#WhatYOUcando!

#SIGN the ECI

#LIKE us

#Donate www.morethaneducation.eu/donate/

#Collect signatures!

#Promote the ECI in your local

#Be part of the ECI Task Force

#Be CIVIC and EDUCATED!

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona

Interest groups provide a great opportunity for AEGEE members to discuss common interests in a structured way and in a perfect environment where new initiatives and projects can be developed. Maria de la Torre tells us something about the Gender Equality Interest Group, for which she is coordinator.

Gender equality has been on AEGEE’s agenda since August 2014, when Léa Charlet was appointed as Policy Officer to develop the topic in AEGEE. As a result of her work, an active community was built around discussions on this topic. Seeing that there is a great interest in Gender Equality in the Network, and after a meeting during EPM Leiden, some AEGEEans decided that the natural next step was to officially establish an interest group, approved by the CD on the 11th of May 2016. The members of the Gender Equality Interest Group believe that every person should have the right to make choices about who they want to be, no matter what their gender identity is. Furthermore, they believe it is important to recognise and discuss how gender stereotypes affect us all in our daily lives, sometimes in obvious and sometimes in subtle ways, that we may not even be aware of. At the moment, the priority of the interest group is to assess the AEGEE awareness on gender issues, so that its members can build on the current situation in the best possible way.

At the time of researching for this article, the interest group has thirty-eight members in their mailing list and 469 ‘likes’ on its Facebook group, and the amount of members and ‘likes’ keeps growing every day. The interest group has four moderators: Marije Arentze, María Ballesteros, Léa Charlet and Maria de la Torre. But a lot of people are extremely active and are helping keeping the debate active, especially since the Interest Group was officially established.

The members of the interest group believe that gender equality is a matter of common interest in AEGEE and that it is a big part of our civic education in general. After almost two years of activities, they can still see a lot of sexism in AEGEE, and they want to play their part, raise awareness and make a small change. It is not about mitigating differences, they do not aim at eliminating the diversity of gender expression. Instead, the members would like a future when people will not need to be put into boxes; when everybody will have the same rights and opportunities regardless of their gender, because this level of equality still varies from country to country. There are still very few women in positions of power and the amount of women who are employed part-time is three times higher than that of men. Women still have to deal with harassment on the street and sexism at their workplace on a daily basis, let alone rape and abuse.

The members of the interest group witness everyday how women’s bodies are used as a marketing strategy in ads that depict women as objects without agency. The interest group’s Facebook group is very active and it is increasingly filled with discussions about gender equality and with shared information and experiences concerning gender equality almost every day. The members of the interest group have recently started a Book Club, where they also included a list of academic literature as well as a movie about gender equality. Furthermore, they would like to encourage debates and critical thinking by establishing a collaboration with the Civic Education Working Group. Recently, they conducted a survey in AEGEE on the perception of gender equality. Soon they will have the analysis of the results and publish them. For the next term, they plan to do a deeper, more policy-oriented survey, for which they will also launch a newsletter summing up the highlights of their discussions, news related to the topic and the pertinent activities. Finally, they are working on workshop outlines and plan to have a handout for locals after the Summer that, together with a PR campaign, will help to increase the number of events with gender equality education and discussion in AEGEE.

If you are interested in the topic and want to work with us you can send me an email (maria.de.la.torre@aegee.org) or join our Facebook group.

Written by Matteo Lai, AEGEE-Cagliari.

This Agora we won’t only elect the new Comité Directeur and members of different Commissions, but we will also vote on the new Action Agenda. If you are asking yourself: “What agenda?”, this article is for you, but also those who already know what the Action Agenda is, are welcome to check out what the new one will look like.

To begin at the beginning, not of the founding of the earth but of the planning in AEGEE, our association is built upon a vision, mission and means, defining who we are, what we do and what we want the future to look like. Based on that, every three years a Strategic Plan, defining Focus Areas that we want AEGEE to focus on, is created at the Planning Meeting (stay tuned for the next one taking place this autumn).

To make sure we can actually contribute to these Focus Areas, every year at the European Planning Meeting (EPM) an Action Agenda is created, which gives concrete objectives that our locals and European bodies have to achieve. Shortly said, you can consider the Strategic Plan as AEGEE’s long term vision, and the Action Agenda as the association’s homework to contribute to the vision. If you want to know more about these two documents, take a look at the EPM booklet starting on page 16.

In Bergamo, you will be voting on the Action Agenda that will start on the 1^st of August 2016 and last until the 31^st of July 2017. As you just read, it was created by participants of the European Planning Meeting, which took place in Leiden this year. After 1,5 day of a thematic conference on migration, members of locals all over the Network took a closer look at the Focus Areas we have and created a draft of new goals to achieve in the fields of Spreading Europtimism, Youth Mobility, Youth Employment and Civic Education.

Based on this draft and the feedback given on the forum, the Comité Directeur created a final version of the Action Agenda that will be presented at the upcoming Agora. Curious what you will be presented? You can find the new objectives here. In case you have any questions or suggestions to improve them, feel free to share them on the forum or come on stage after the presentation of the next Action Agenda!

Written by Svenja van der Tol, Secretary General of AEGEE-Europe 2015-2016

In order to strengthen civic competences in AEGEE, the Civic Education Working Group has been promoting debating throughout the year. Why? Debating was proven to improve academic achievements, critical thinking, mutual understanding, as well as communication, argumentation and interpersonal skills. In short it helps you to know more and form a better-founded opinion. Today we are taking the debate online for the first time, with a topic that challenges the very basis of our organisation! 

For each topic, a defending and an opposing motion will be presented. You can express your opinion and continue to debate on the forum. Note that these statements are not necessarily the person’s personal opinion, nor are the arguments they use indisputable.

I have a very vivid memory of my first contact with the Declaration of Human Rights. I was preparing for an inter-school competition on this topic and was desperately trying to memorise all 30 articles by heart. It was extremely difficult because in my naïve and unaware teenage mind, I found them trivial and self-evident and I could not imagine how and why one can be openly deprived of any of them. And please keep in mind that I was growing up in Poland during the times when memories of communist crimes were still very fresh.

In the western cultural circle, where a linear concept of time is predominant, we tend to assume that our society is constantly morally developing and the future can be only better. However, looking at an ever-repeating history, we find plenty of examples like war crimes and genocides, which clearly show we do not learn from our mistakes. This makes the Human Rights, written and declared right after Europe’s most fatal genocide in modern times, more relevant than ever before. Sadly, we don’t have to look hundreds of years into the past to see violation of Human Rights in Europe. We have seen many recent failures in the face of the refugee crisis. Even without any current crisis, we can easily point to many places on the map where Human Rights are not part of society’s everyday life.

I wish that Human Rights would be regarded as old-fashioned, well practiced and as obvious for everybody as they were for my teenage-self. But it is hard to go further if you have not even arrived at the attempted status quo.

What is more, I don’t believe any of the social developments or other 21st century context issues could possibly influence relevance of the Human Rights. It really does not matter if people are riding horses or flying cars, living in tribes or in the European Union, they still have same basic needs and deserve certain rights. Human Rights represent core values of humankind, imperative in their style of writing and applicable to every human being on the globe. It still remains innovative when it comes to the formal aspect of it being a Declaration. Even in the framework of the European Union, we witness a complete lack of cohesion when it comes to rights regarding the asylum execution. Taking into account the complexity of the world we live in and political games, there is no higher success than the recognition of a universal framework.

Last but not least, I would really not underestimate the power of the Declaration.  It has a huge sophistic potential when it comes to open confrontations. The only problem is that we don’t confront those who fail to respect Human Rights as much as we should. This can not be changed by any new legislation. We don’t need another dead letter. What we need is to enforce the Declaration even more as a set of standards to measure ourselves against and keep striving for everyone to finally take seriously what we have universally agreed to.

You can read the defending motion here.

If you want to give your imputs and continue with the debate you can go to the forum via this link.

Written by Joanna, Civic Education Working Group