A lot of students dream about spending one or two semester abroad in a foreign country. And why not? The experience is amazing; you get to meet all these new amazing people from different countries with various backgrounds. You get to go to parties and stay out as late as you want. You can go on trips, see a country and experience live to the fullest. Erasmus life is like a rollercoaster ride. You go up and down, up and down and everything is so exciting. The sad part is at the end of the ride, when you have to get off the train.

When I came back from my Erasmus period in the UK in June of 2013, I was excited to see all my friends and my family back at home. It was nice to show everyone the pictures I made and to tell people about my adventures. It was really nice for about three weeks and that was when I started to miss everyone from my Erasmus. Yes, we still keep in touch via facebook and whatsapp and I email my best friend from my Erasmus weekly but it is just not the same. You can’t go to a party and create crazy masks before going there, you can’t go over to their house and have a movie marathon. You can’t talk about missing your home with them because you are already home (and people might think you are crazy if you start talking about home when you are already home). You are back in your old life, and it feels like a safety blanket and you appreciate it, but it is just less exciting.

Am I overreacting? I might be, who knows? But that doesn’t mean that some people don’t experience a post-Erasmus-depression or The Erasmus Blues as it is called by those who actually went on Erasmus. Anyway I know more who have experienced the Erasmus Blues. For example a friend of mine went to America for a semester in the beginning of this school year. At first she was scared to leave her home but when she came back from America she was just excited as I was. She had such a brilliant time and made so many friends and it was in one word: amazing. I know you may think we are dweeps who spend all their time complaining and complaining is so hipster nowadays. But I honestly think Erasmus Blues (yes, I am sticking with it) is a real thing.

So what did I do to not dwell on the exciting life that I left behind? You simply get up every day and do your thing. I know I sound sappy and yes, I may have mourned for a couple of weeks. I thought quite a lot about the awesome time I had and I spend a lot of time talking to and about my Erasmus friends. But I also went to see my friends from home and since it was summer I spend some time working as well. For me it was important to get out of my house and to experience life again. Honestly some days I felt like laying in my bed all day and not getting up because life just wasn’t that exciting but then again I didn’t experience all of those amazing things by laying in bed. What also helped was making a photo album. I had all these pictures and I figured I had to do something with them so I spend a year making a photo album. It was nice to recall all those memories and put them together in a book.

To conclude my story; my Erasmus experience was amazing and I learned so much about myself during that time. You should try to make the most out of that experience during and after that period. Keep being that open-minded person you were during your Erasmus period and enjoy your memories. In the end the experience was worth the goodbye.

Written by Majka Geerts, AEGEE-Nijmegen

“YES Europe” will be the brand new programme as approved on Tuesday, the 27th of November 2012 by the Culture and Education Committee (CULT) of the European Parliament. The new programme proposal, presented by the Chair Ms Doris Pack (already patron of the Higher Education Days project), has been approved with a great majority and will be presented to the plenary for discussion and approval next year.

Rejected the branding “Erasmus for All,” YES Europe will merge all existing programmes for the Youth, Education and training, and Sport (that is how the acronym YES has been created), safeguarding the brand names already existing in the field of education (Erasmus, Comenius, Grundtvig and Leonardo da Vinci) and including new separate chapters for youth and sport.

YES includes the scheme of a loan guarantee for Master students that wish to study abroad, complementing (“and not replacing,” as Doris Pack said) the current local and international funding opportunities, with the prevision of favourable terms for students to be agreed.

In line with the advocacy AEGEE-Europe and other European organisations carried on, the new programme has a separate chapter for youth, that keeps the brand name Youth in Action and foresees a separate budget line for funding. Moreover, the budget increase proposed by the European Commission of 18 billion Euro has been kept, but with the provision of minimum guaranteed thresholds for separate chapters, being 83.4% for education and training, 8% for youth and 1.8% for sport.

Doris Pack appealed to: “all those authority who repeatedly stress the importance of education in their speeches to provide an adequate budget,” as the negotiation on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 depends exclusively on the provision of Member States.

Finally, it is a good success of the advocacy process of AEGEE-Europe, which started before the EBM in Izmir 2012 and was lead by the Comité Directeur with the great help of the Advocacy team.

So, while there is satisfaction for “the fact that the YES Europe proposal with s a lot more inclusive title than Erasmus For All is actually ensuring a separate budget line for the youth, stressing therefore the importance of youth funded activities, and is finally mentioning the operational grants, which are needed to ensure the viability of the work of the European youth organisations,” as Lucille Rieux, Secretary General and together with Luis Alvarado a contact person in the Comité Directeur for the advocacy team, commented on behalf of the whole Comité Directeur, the advocacy path has to continue now: “for a better inclusion of the youth in the management of the programme,” as Lucille continued, and of course for an “adequate budget,” as Doris Pack stated.

Written by Alfredo Sellitti, AEGEE-Salerno

On the 23^rd of November 2011, the European Commission officially presented the proposal of “Erasmus for All” (E4A), the new program that will replace our beloved “Youth in Action” for upcoming years 2014-2020, gathering the areas of Education, Culture, Sport and Youth in one same program.

As you might be aware, the current Youth in Action (which is the Program of EU Commission for 2007-2013) gives a lot of importance to Non Formal Education (NFE), active citizenship and empowerment of young people to take ownership and develop their own projects, which will contribute to the big picture of European Integration. It allows young people to manage and implement their own projects and ideas, as well as supports youth organizations and civil society entities to carry out their work by providing operational grants, like the one we receive every year for AEGEE-Europe.

The Multiannual Financial Framework presented by the European Commission for the new proposal is quite good, because there has been a huge increase in the budget.

However, there are some gaps in the European Commission’s proposal, which are not so good from young people´s point of view, specially for all of us belonging to International Youth NGOs (IYNGOs).

In few words, “E4A” is based on education and training, focusing on formal higher education in order to make young people more employable. The proposal focuses mainly on the needs of the labor market, without mentioning the importance of Non Formal Education for the development of our youth as active citizens, it removes the co-management of young people in the project, and very importantly, it removes the support of operational grants for youth organizations.

If this proposal were approved, it would mean that organizations like AEGEE-Europe would lose almost half of their annual budget, which would damage them and their work and in some cases could even make them disappear.

There is a fear for the Youth sector to disappear under the ERASMUS brand, as there is no clear separate budget line for youth in the proposal.

Here you can find some of the main differences between the two programs:

As you might know, an Advocacy Team has been formed by AEGEE-Europe in order to work on AEGEE’s opinion. AEGEE-Europe stands for an independent program for Youth with a complete separate budget. A program which will still give importance to NFE and empowerment of young Europeans, allowing them to become co-managers and have an impact on the society with their initiatives.

The process goes as following: Now the EU Commission has sent the proposal, so now it is up to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to decide whether this proposal will be accepted. AEGEE-Europe as well as most IYNGOs together with the European Youth Forum are lobbying for an INDEPENDENT YOUTH CHAPTER OR PROGRAM. Check the campaign: http://www.whereareyouthgoing.eu/

The ultimate goal is to convince the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to establish an independent program or chapter inside the current proposal that will continue the values of “Youth in Action,” assuring that young people’s implication in European issues will still be supported, both financially and socially.

So until now, the task of the Advocacy Team has been, together with locals, to contact all the Members of European Parliament (MEPs) of different countries where AEGEE is present. If we convince our national MEPs, they will later on vote for what we want in the Parliament. We were the ones who voted for them to be there. They will listen to us.

What the Advocacy Team would mostly appreciate is more help from everyone who feels that “Youth in Action” needs another chance. Having more volunteers in the Advocacy Team means more countries covered.

Until now we have the following countries covered:

Germany: Kathrin Renner (AEGEE-Passau), Holger Schmitt (AEGEE-Berlin), Max van Bahlen and Stephan Noll (AEGEE-Mannheim).

Czech Republic : Pavel Zbornik (AEGEE-Praha)

France: Lucille Rieux (AEGEE-Toulouse)

Latvia : Diana Ondža (AEGEE-Riga)

The Netherlands: Marleen Dijkhoff (AEGEE-Utrecht)

Romania: Gabriela Motroc and Olimpia Parje (AEGEE-Bucaresti)

Italy: Alfredo Sellitti and Claudia Fiorentino (AEGEE-Europe)

Bulgaria: Diana Yolova and Liliya Buyukliyska (AEGEE-Sofia)

Spain: Luis Alvarado Martínez (AEGEE- Las Palmas),Miguel Gallardo (AEGEE-Alicante) and NetCom team.

Hungary: Réka Salamon (AEGEE-Debrecen)

Greece: Manos Valasis (AEGEE-Peiraias)

What do you have to do after you offer yourself as a volunteer? Basically talk to relevant decision-makers in your country and try to convince them to be on the same boat with us. Their approvals bring us one step closer to having the independent Youth program saved.

Not to mention that your help will give AEGEE the visibility needed to really make a difference in the attempt to save “Youth in Action:” the more we talk about it, the more high-profile we get!

Can you imagine how it would be to have so many people struggling for the same cause?

We do and we want you all in!

This is the time to really fight for what we want! The voice of the Youth in Europe must be heard!

Gabriela Motroc and Luis Alvarado Martinez,

On behalf of the Advocay Team

Written by Luis Alvarado Martinez, AEGEE-Las Palmas