Three weeks ago, AEGEE was invited to a pilot experience coming from the European Parliament. For the first time, a Member of the European Parliament would establish a dialogue with some stakeholders in the youth field through HangOut, a recently launched platform that allows up to 10 people to interact in a videoconference which can be also recorded and streamed to include more participants.

The MEP behind this initiative was very relevant: Doris Pack has been rapporteur of the Culture and Education Committee in the European Parliament (CULT) for the whole process of the redesign of the Youth and Education programme in the next Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-17. The topic of the conference was The Future of the Erasmus Programme.

The conference took place on June 25th and, as the headoffice of AEGEE was flying back from the Zagreb Youth Conference to celebrate the entry of Croatia in the EU, we appointed Madalena Sousa as our representative in the HangOut. We prepared several questions in advance for the session, but in the end it was quite short and as there were several other International NGOs invited, unfortunately we could not ask all our questions.

The conference was recorded and uploaded. You can watch it here.

In the opinion of Madalena, this option for interaction is complementary to the Structured Dialogue, which guarantees that “the voices of young people in Europe reach the decision-making process in areas that directly affect them”. In this sense, the Google Hangout seems to be “an easy instrument to establish communication among stakeholders, where everyone can participate online and place questions. It is an online dialogue, with some guests that can address direct questions to the MEP, but at the same time there is place for people following online to also make comments/messages/questions”. The staff from the European Parliament was in charge of collecting questions from the public who followed the streaming and engaged in Twitter, Facebook or Google+, which were also answered by Ms. Doris Pack.

Madalena stated her satisfaction with this “opportunity to represent AEGEE, to deal with a new tool and to contribute for this close contact between stakeholders. Definitely I think that AEGEE should always be involved and participating on events that promote discussion with stakeholders. Online or not, with more or less time, the important thing is to grab the opportunity to share our concerns or place our questions.”

The conversation touched several topics like sustainability of the new framework, the future of some of the different programmes included in Erasmus+, the convenience of having such a big programme when so many people are unemployed and could benefit from this money being invested in them… but the best way to know more is to watch the video.

The other participating stakeholders were: Erasmus Student Network (ESN), Erasmus Generation Network (Garagerasmus), Fraternité 2020, European Civil Platform on Life Long Learning (EUCIS-LLL), European Youth Forum (YFJ), Erasmus Mundus Alumni (EMA), and Cronoworld.

Adapted from our post in Euractiv blog Key to Europe.

The Dutch locals are one of the most numerous in AEGEE. While some countries only have one local, the Netherlands can be proud of a whole eleven. The time has come for them to unite and join the Dutch Youth Council (NJR), where nine out of eleven AEGEE locals in the Netherlands are represented.  This does sound very nice and impressive, but what does it actually mean?

Wieke van der Kroef, Speaker of the Network Commission Agora-Enschede – Agora-Budapest, kindly explains the situation. After all, she was the one who initiated the idea and took the first step to making it a reality.

Wieke: “Becoming a member means a few things. First of all, we will be able to vote on their assemblies, so all our members will be represented in their policy now. This means the following things:

1. We are closely connected to other youth associations who are members, and that makes it easier to start collaborations;

2. Being a member of the official Youth Council means that we have an official way to get to talk to (national) politicians and advise on policies;

3. The NJR has a good cooperation and connections to funding organisations, like the company distributing the Youth in Action funds in the Netherlands;

4. The NJR is not just for students though, it’s also for high school students, so it can give us opportunities to already start our PR before people go to university;

5. As the NJR is also a member of the European Youth Forum (YFJ), AEGEE now has an extra influence on their work apart from the vote that AEGEE-Europe has.”

But how were all off these opportunities opened? It was a step-by-step process. The Dutch Youth Council first rejected AEGEE for a lack of national level. Good thing that this did not stop Wieke. After a close look through their statutes, she was able to prove that AEGEE is legible for a membership just like any other organisation. The next step was to find a representative who would present AEGEE to the board of the NJR and convince them just how successful our cooperation can be. This is where Paul Smits, one of Wieke’s subcommies, comes in. He was the one who did the trip to their general assembly.

Paul: “The General Assembly of the NJR was a fantastic experience. All these young motivated people who are actively participating in the society in different ways, brought together in one umbrella organisation, the NJR. It was an energetic meeting with a good meal before and a social drink afterwards, during which I spoke with several people who already inspired me.”

It was here that Paul represented and defended AEGEE for its right to become an official member of the NJR. After a small battle, he succeeded.

Paul: “Representing the participating Dutch locals is wonderful. I am now in close contact with the NJR board and all the other member organisations which are potential partners for my locals.”

Now, is the time for the Dutch locals to get more active than ever. With all these new opportunities and possibilities at hand it would be a shame to let them go to waste. So get to it!

Written by Olga Volovyk, AEGEE-Kyiv