The Charlemagne Youth Prize is one of the most prestigious European Prizes. It has been awarded annually since 1950 by the city οf Aachen, Germany, to people who contributed to the ideals upon which it has been founded. It commemorates Charlemagne, ruler of the Frankish Empire, who resided and is buried in Aachen. Traditionally the award is given to the recipient on Ascension Day in a ceremony in the town hall of Aachen. In April 2008, the organisers of the Charlemagne Prize and the European Parliament jointly created a new European Charlemagne Youth Prize, which recognises contributions by young people towards the process of European integration.

This year AEGEE has the honour to have not one, but two projects that won the national round in Romania and Slovakia, respectively: “Faces of Europe” and “Summer University”.

Faces of Europe is a photo blog launched by Your Vision for EUrope, a project of AEGEE-Europe. Inspired by the famous Humans of New York, the photoblog aims at making Europe more personal and exploring the human diversity of our continent. They want to collect and spread the faces and voices of people from different social, cultural and national backgrounds.

The first edition of Faces of Europe, running from January until June 2016, was already a success. In the first edition, the team consisted of 16 committed reporters from seven different nationalities. As a result of their works, they published more than 100 stories of many Europeans on Facebook, collected more than 2,500 likes and many messages of support and positive feedbacks from readers. The second edition is currently ongoing.

Summer University, one of the most successful, if not the most successful, project of AEGEE, has proven its value to all of us through the years. The Summer University is an event that takes place in the summer between two to four weeks. Usually, 20 to 50 participants are hosted in different parts of Europe, and they have the chance to learn by travelling, meeting new people, integrating with the culture of their hosting country and as a result they broaden horizons.
Specifically, in 2016 it gave the opportunity to over 4000 Europeans to see different parts of the continent, meet other youngsters and learn new skills and abilities together. Since 1988 more than 100,000 people participated in Summer Universities, which took place in over 260 cities in more than 40 European countries, making it the biggest volunteer-based mobility project in Europe.

In 2013, Europe On Track, another project, which was inspired by the current president of AEGEE-Europe, Reka Salamon, was awarded with the Charlemagne Youth Prize.

This month, from the 22^nd to the 24^th of May, the Charlemagne Youth Prize Winners’ ceremony will be held in Aachen. AEGEE will participate with these two nominations that were received from Romania and Slovakia. Due to the fact that AEGEE has already been a laureate in the past, apart from the winner projects, the CD also received some invitations. So our association will have represantitives who will attend several events, including the Youth Prize Award Ceremony, which always takes place two days before the Ascension Day, the day on which the prestigious International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen is awarded.

Written by Vasiliki Andrioti, AEGEE-Ioannina

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne_Prize

https://www.projects.aegee.org/suct/su2017/cyp2017.php

http://www.zeus.aegee.org/portal/

You know them from their photo blog that was inspired by the famous ‘Humans of New York’ photo blog, but did you also know that Faces of Europe (FoE) recently had a summer competition, in which anyone could send in their pictures about unusual trips, new experiences and unexpected encounters? The AEGEEan was lucky enough to be able to interview Viola Bianchetti, manager of FoE, and ask her all about it.

Picture by Siarhei Marau

The AEGEEan: Could you tell us a bit about your team and their work?

Viola: The team of Faces of Europe is composed of four amazing and very committed members. Until now three of them, Cosmina Bisboaca, Leonie Riebesam and Tedi Martinescu, have been the coordinators of the team of reporters, and one, indeed me, has been managing the overall project and taking care of the publication. The coordinators are the ones directly in contact with our pool of reporters, which is made of 16 reporters of seven different nationalities. The reporters are the ones in charge of creating the photo blog posts, while the project team gives them feedback, suggests improvements and ensures the overall quality of the project. Right now we are thinking about changing the task division in our team in order to dedicate more energy to PR, promotion, communication and human resources, but our basic tasks won’t change.

Could you tell us a bit more about the Summer University photo contest?

The aim of the summer competition was to give people who like our project, but are not in the pool of reporters, the chance to have their story published on our page. Therefore we asked our readers to send us a photo of themselves or of someone they met during their summer travels and to tell us their story. It was really exciting to read about so many diverse experiences, each one unique in its way. It was very hard to choose the winners,  but in the end we selected nine stories to be published during the month of September on our Facebook page as well as on our website.

Picture by Eimear Phelan

How does the photo contest tie in with the vision of your project, Faces of Europe?

The aim of Faces of Europe is to make Europe more personal by exploring the human diversity of our continent. As AEGEEans we noticed that nothing is more effective in breaking stereotypes and creating solidarity than to meet people from different countries and get to know their personal stories. We thought we could try to achieve a similar effect by publishing photo blog posts, thereby spreading the stories of many Europeans coming from different backgrounds. The summer competition takes our very aim to a new level, by directly involving our readers in the development of the project. In this way, we wanted to make Europe even more personal, by giving different people the chance to tell their own story on our page,  even without the mediation of a reporter.

Why did you, specifically, decide to set up this photo contest?

We thought that the summer is the perfect time to experience something new, to discover new aspects of Europe and to gather inspiring stories which are worth spreading. Therefore launching a competition about summer stories made especially sense to us.

How did you determine the winners of the photo contest?

The members of the Faces of Europe team voted on the received photo blog posts. We took the quality of the photo, the originality of the text and its relevance to our aim into account.

Picture by Daria Belikova

What are the Faces of Europe’s future plans (will there be more photo contests)?

Many news await our readers and followers! In mid October we will launch a new round of recruitment, in order to reinforce our team of reporters. Moreover, we are working on brand new visuals and we are thinking about many ways to expand our project through partnerships, cooperation, side actions. We also want to show the work of our reporters in more exhibitions,  like the one which we organised during the Your Vision for Europe conference “Borderless Europe: Blessing or Burden?” in Cluj-Napoca. We would definitely like to have more competitions in the future, but we do not have fixed plans regarding that.

Is there anything that I haven’t asked, but that you would like to have included into the article?

Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen.

Your Vision for EUrope project is a new AEGEE project initiated as a campaign for Spreading Europtimism. Its purpose is to engage young Europeans from a wide variety of national, social and cultural backgrounds in an open discursive process of collective learning, opinion and will-formation regarding the future of Europe and make sure that their voices are being heard. The project launches now an online photoblog called Faces of Europe which aims at encouraging the sense of European community by sharing stories of various individuals from Europe. We talked with Viola Bianchetti from AEGEE-Bologna, who is the content manager to tell us more about this photoblog and what it does exactly. 

The AEGEEan: Hello, let us begin by telling us a few things about this project. What is the purpose of Faces of Europe project?                                   

Viola: Hello and thank you for this interview!

Photoblog by Alessandro Da Rold

First of all, Faces of Europe is part of the new AEGEE project, Your Vision for EUrope. This project, which is still in its launching phase, aims to facilitate discussion among young people with regards to the future of Europe. Our purpose is to educate them on European issues and politics, to stimulate active citizenship and to make sure that relevant policy-makers and stakeholders hear their voices. Stay up-to-date about our activities via our facebook page: we will soon have many news for you! And if you or your local are interested in our project, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Coming to Faces of Europe, it is an online photoblog which aims at making Europe more personal and spreading a sense of belonging and community by sharing stories of common people living across Europe. The campaign wants to show the great diversity of Europe and to give space to different experiences and views, and at the same time, underline the connection between the stories of individuals and Europe.

How was this project created?

The idea came up during our kick-off meeting in Brussels, in a session where we were brainstorming about concrete activities for our objectives (we simply put really big paper sheets on the grass in the AEGEE-house garden and got creative!). While everyone was writing something, somebody put down “Stories from Europeans”, this then triggered someone else to write down “Humans of New York”, and then “Humans of Europe”. In the session after this creative brainstorming, we then quickly agreed that we would like to launch a photoblog campaign, and the idea of ‘Faces of Europe’ was born.

Photoblog by Michela Gotti

Tell us more about this project. What does it consist of?

Every Faces of Europe’s photoblog consists of a portrait of a person and of a short text which tells his/her personal story and explains his/her relationship with Europe. The photoblogs are published on a (nearly) daily basis and shared on our online platform and on facebook. We aim at giving voice to people from different national, social and cultural backgrounds, and of different ages, genders and ethnicities. One important point for us is to include also statements which express doubts or fears about the current state of the European project, in order to create a comprehensive picture of what is Europe today from the point of view of its citizens.

How can we become reporters for this project?

Our recruitment is ongoing, so if you think you are the right person for our project and you would like to become a part of our wonderful team of reporters, don’t hesitate to apply!

In order to do so, you need to follow these two steps:

1. Fill out the application form
2. Send a mail with 1 or 2 photoblogs to yourvisionforeurope@aegee.org. The photoblogs submitted should be in line with the ones already published.

Is it an internal project for AEGEE members only?

No, we encourage people from outside AEGEE to apply as well. At the moment, the majority of our reporters are non-AEGEEans.

Is this project going to have a follow-up with the results?  

Photoblog by Elisabetta Calzolaio

At the moment, we don’t have precise plans about it. ‘Your Vision for EUrope’ project will include a final conference where the various outcomes will be presented, ideally in the form of policy recommendations for relevant policy makers, so as to express the vision of young people about the future of Europe. We still don’t know how ‘Faces of Europe’ photoblog will contribute to this collection of final results. If the whole campaign proves to be successful and valuable, we can certainly take in consideration a specific follow-up (e.g. a dedicated publication).

How much do you think the recent events will impact the people’s vision of Europe ?

Europe is certainly going through a period of crisis, which means a crucial moment for its development. Starting from the Greece’s debt crisis, then considering the still ongoing refugee crisis, and finally arriving to the recent dramatic events in Paris, Europe is facing enormous challenges. I think that now more than ever people is questioning the identity and even the existence of the European Union. This isn’t necessarily a negative fact: it is the time for European citizens and in particular for the younger generation to think about what they want Europe to be and to shape a different future for our community. If we fail in this, it is possible that the European project will fade.

As a conclusion, do you have any suggestions for the people who are applying as reporters for Faces of Europe?

You don’t need to be a professional photographer or journalist to join our team: we are looking for reporters who love meeting new people and sharing stories. Another requirement is to have the time and will to submit two photoblogs per month. If you recognize yourself in this description, don’t wait and apply!

You can find Your Vision for EUrope Facebook page here and the Faces of Europe photoblog Facebook page here.

Written by Gabriela Geană, AEGEE-București