Policy Officer – The AEGEEan – AEGEE's online magazine – AEGEE-Europe ../../.. AEGEE's Online Magazine Mon, 13 Nov 2017 23:19:34 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.7 ../../../wp-content/uploads/cropped-The-AEGEEan_logo-FBprofile-32x32.png Policy Officer – The AEGEEan – AEGEE's online magazine – AEGEE-Europe ../../.. 32 32 Still a Long Way to Go for Gender Equality in Europe ../../../2017/11/14/still-a-long-way-to-go-for-gender-equality-in-europe/ Tue, 14 Nov 2017 06:00:59 +0000 ../../../?p=41237 On October 11, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) welcomed around 300 decision-makers and representatives of civil society, among which AEGEE, represented by the Policy Officer of the Equal Rights Working Group.   EIGE is an autonomous body of the European Union established to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality. During the morning’s panel discussions, the… Read more →

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On October 11, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) welcomed around 300 decision-makers and representatives of civil society, among which AEGEE, represented by the Policy Officer of the Equal Rights Working Group.

 

EIGE is an autonomous body of the European Union established to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality. During the morning’s panel discussions, the panellists presented the findings of the new Gender Equality Index 2017 and discussed possible solutions to gender inequalities during an event at the Council of the European Union in Brussels.

The Focus Area of Equal Rights has for aim to acknowledge and tackle discrimination based on gender identity, expression and sexual orientation, and promote equity from an intersectional perspective. To achieve this objective, it is absolutely necessary to have access to data revealing the situation of groups of people at the intersection of several grounds for discrimination. For the first time this year, the Gender Equality Index 2017 offers the possibility to compare gender equality between countries with an intersectional perspective.

The Gender Equality Index is a tool created four years ago to evaluate the progress of the EU and the member states and indicate how far (or close) we are from achieving gender equality. The Index measures gender gaps in six core domains – knowledge, time, power health, work and money – and provides comprehensive data in two other satellite domains, violence against women and intersectional inequalities.

The main conclusion of this year Gender Equality Index is the disappointingly slow progress towards Gender equality in Europe between 2005 and 2015, with important disparities between countries.

While gender equality in the domain of power (decision-making position across the political, economic and social sphere) is progressing slowly but steadily, gender inequalities in time use, referring to the allocation of time spent on care, domestic work and social activities are persisting and growing. Young women between ages 15-24 are for instance less likely to take part in leisure activities outside their home (39% of young women workers takes part in sporting, cultural or leisure activities outside of their home, at least daily or several times a week, against 56% of young men workers). They are also way more likely to care for children, elderly or people with disabilities everyday (15,4% of young women between 15-24 against 3,1% of young men).

The event also represented the opportunity to present the new key feature of this year’s Index, that is data on intersectional inequalities. The index provides data showing how gender intersects with age, education, family composition and parenthood, country of birth and disability. Due to the difficulty to gather data on certain types of discrimination, the Index however fails to cover intersections between, for instance, gender and sexual orientation or gender and religion.

These disaggregated data reveal some worrisome inequalities affecting people at the intersection of different identities. During the conference, Pirkko Mahlamäki (Executive committee member of the European disability forum) emphasised for instance the situation of women with disabilities, that are at risk of falling behind in the area of education and labour market, but also three to five times more likely to be victims of domestic abuses.

As underlined by MEP Ernest Urtasun, EU decision-makers have the duty to rely on those data to ensure that EU anti-discrimination policies do not leave groups of people without adequate protection.

To ensure that decision-makers implement evidence-based, inclusive legislations, the gathering of data needs to be strengthened considerably in most member states to obtain a clear picture of inequalities and intersecting discriminations. The Equal Rights Working Group is particularly pleased to see this emphasis on intersectionality and support EIGE’s call to stakeholders to improve the gathering of relevant data to ensure a complete and clear image of how different types of discrimination and inequalities intersect.

Get to know the situation of gender equality in your country, and let’s continue to strive for a more Equal Europe for all!

 

Written by Juliette Beaulaton, Policy Officer of Equal Right Working Group

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Behind the Doors of Rue du Noyer 55 – Pablo’s view ../../../2016/05/05/behind-the-doors-of-rue-du-noyer-55-pablos-view/ Thu, 05 May 2016 16:45:43 +0000 ../../../?p=34586 Somewhere in Brussels, near the European Commission, you can find a house that looks just like most other houses in the city from the outside, but contains a lot of rooms, people and ideas on the inside. What house am I talking about? The AEGEE house, which the new Comité Directeur has been calling their home since the 1st of… Read more →

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Somewhere in Brussels, near the European Commission, you can find a house that looks just like most other houses in the city from the outside, but contains a lot of rooms, people and ideas on the inside. What house am I talking about? The AEGEE house, which the new Comité Directeur has been calling their home since the 1st of August, when we moved in to start our work. “What is that work about?”, you may wonder, and probably other members wonder too. Read on to find out!

 

13123048_10153460891820009_1446150755031372650_oMy alarm clock is set at 8:15 am. Fortunately, the distance from my bedroom to the office can be covered in less than one minute and there is not traffic jam that keeps me on my way to my desk – apart from some bathroom congestion. Once in the office I try to follow some sort of routine to make sure that the day will be fully effective: calendar-check; news-check; emails-check. Our life in the office gets basically full with meetings and more meetings, and emails and more emails so there is little time for the remaining creativity tasks that in some cases consume also our night and resting time.

In this Comité Directeur we have tried to divide our portfolios in a way that we share the workload and that the tasks are distributed according to our knowledge and motivations. In my case, I have quite a big field to cover which is Youth Employment that as one of our focus areas has a Working Group linked to it. I have to monitor the most relevant happenings related to Youth Employment in Europe and participate in activities to show what AEGEE stands for. Also, linked to this field, I’m the project manager of the MY-WAY project which is a Horizon2020 project funded by the European Commission striving at innovation in the web entrepreneurship ecosystem in Europe. Now we are in a phase where we have to develop an action plan for a city to improve the engagement and effectiveness of Student Support Centres.

Another big part of my time is spent on IT as I have to coordinate the development of MyAEGEE (the new cool name of the OMS) and in general, all the IT related things. In this sense, Anna Gumbau, the Communication Director, is also taking a piece of the puzzle as she is managing the content of the Members Portal and the aegee.org site and she is developing a brand new website that will hopefully be released soon. MyAEGEE will drastically change the way we work online in AEGEE so there is a pool of people led by Pavel Zbornik and Fabrizio Bellicano working on this.12747398_1042695452454620_1457358289440191745_o

The third pillar of my task distribution is the External impact overview. In this area I don’t play alone as it’s a task that is also distributed among the rest of the CD members. On the one hand, we have funding that can be corporated in which Ander Guerrero, the Financial Director, and me have to contact companies looking for sponsorship opportunities; and public funding that refers mainly to monitor grants as the EYF, Erasmus+, DEAR and others to later on help writing the applications. On the other hand, there is the soft external impact in which the main tasks are to advocate for AEGEE’s beliefs based on the approved papers and to be seen as an organisation to take into account for youth and students rights.

External Relations Director is a fancy name to say that I have to coordinate the different AEGEE bodies that are in touch with externals and also to have an overview on the different relations we have with other organisations. Therefore, we can differentiate two sides:

1 – The coordination of AEGEE bodies means that the Pool of Representatives, the Liaison Office and the Working Groups need to be briefed in the activities they participate in on behalf of AEGEE Europe. The new structure of the Working Groups has an external vocation having within the team a Policy Officer and a Working Group coordinator, so as External Relations director, I have to assess the development of Policy documents that they produce, their representation in events and the external outreach of their activities.

2 – The overview of AEGEE relations with other organisations is linked to the fact that the massive structure of AEGEE requires the entire board to get those organisations divided to increase our impact. My tasks as External Relations director is to structure and have an overview of which are the developments in the relations with those.

One of the highlights of the events I have participated in recently is the Council of Members of the European Youth Forum (COMEM of YFJ). AEGEE is full member of this association, and even represented in the board so it was a great experience for me to understand how the biggest umbrella organisation that gathers National Youth councils and International Youth NGOs works and how our voice can be heard.12998262_10208748797497891_2382592418963076554_o

On a playful side, this house every day is an adventure. Imagine that constantly you are living with eight other people who are almost non-stop travelling around Europe and you also receive almost every weekend a team of five or 10 people who increase the chaos in the house. It was very funny for me when we receive some members from AEGEE-Kyïv in the house and I got to know that they knew me as Mr. Fixer, because every time someone from the Ukranian local came in the house, I was repairing something as the fridge, computers, kitchen shelves… Maybe I’ll be a real handyman in the future.

You can read his interview part one here and part two here.

Written by Pablo Hernández Rodriguez, External Relations Director 2015 – 2016 

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Kristóf Papp, YEWG Coordinator: “We Are Going to Organise a Conference on Youth Employment with the Contribution of Different Related Actors” ../../../2016/04/26/kristof-papp-yewg-coordinator-we-are-going-to-organise-a-conference-on-youth-employment-with-the-contribution-of-different-related-actors/ Tue, 26 Apr 2016 14:30:47 +0000 ../../../?p=34366 One of the four points of Strategic plan 2014-2017 is the Youth Employment, and with the Working Group reform passed during Spring Agora Asturias 2015, there is a specific body dealing with it: the Youth Employment Working Group. The group right now consists of five active members and several supporters, the first generation of working groups. We talked with Kristóf Papp,… Read more →

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One of the four points of Strategic plan 2014-2017 is the Youth Employment, and with the Working Group reform passed during Spring Agora Asturias 2015, there is a specific body dealing with it: the Youth Employment Working Group. The group right now consists of five active members and several supporters, the first generation of working groups. We talked with Kristóf Papp, YEWG coordinator, and he spoke about the work they have done so far and their future project. 

 

The AEGEEan: What are the main aims and tasks of YEWG? Who are the members?

Kristóf: The YEWG is working hard on fulfilling the Action Agenda 2015/2016 and providing members and locals with the essential toolkits and knowledge for organising events related to the Youth Employment with a special focus on job-seeking and entrepreneurial skills. We also aim to organise an advocacy event to help the dialogue between the young people, decision-makers and actors involved such as universities and employers. Sebastiaan Rood is the Policy Officer on Youth Employment who is responsible for the realisation of the event. I, Kristóf Papp, am the Working Group Coordinator. Our job is supported by excellent members such as Kateryna Radochyn, Theodora Giakoumelou and Jorge Sánchez Hernández.

 

 How do you feel, considering your Working Group was born a little time ago and it was your turn to break the ice?

It is a great honor, but also a huge responsibility with a heavy burden. The system is not perfect yet, there are barriers that we have to overcome and some problems we or the future generations will have to tackle. However, I must admit the idea behind the Working Groups is great. These think-tanks can operate perfectly in the future with the proper amount of resources and a working supporting structure. Something candidates for Comité Directeur should also keep in mind![he winks, ed.]

 

What kind of work do the Policy Officer and the Coordinator do?

The Coordinator supports the work of the Working Group, coordinates its every day work, the distribution of the tasks and ensure the communication within the Working Group, and also between the Working Group and the external bodies, such as the CD. The Policy Officer is an essential part of the Working Group. His tasks are to monitor the external and internal news related to youth employment; to inform the Network about the external happenings related to youth employment and start discussions about it within the Network; gather the opinion of the Network, and based on that, to develop policy and position papers.

 

 Do you help Antennas with organising any Summer University?

None of the locals has approached us asking for help organising SUs, yet.

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  What is your idea of Youth Employment?

Youth Employment is a complex question and personally I don’t think there is enough space here to answer your question, specially since I wrote a thesis on the topic [he smiles, ed.] To narrow it down, the Youth Employment can be tackled only by a strong cooperation between the education providers, the employers, the decision makers and the young people.

 

    How can you get involved in YEWG? How can an AEGEE member contribute?

We welcome all the feedbacks and initiatives. We encourage everyone to express their opinions on the Action Agenda 2016/17 on the Forum. Also, if any of the members wish to contact us, feel free to write to me from kristof.papp@aegee.org. 

 

    Which are the activities you have carried on until today?

Most of activities so far have covered representation on the statutory events, and other local events. It has also been a huge task for us to establish the Working Group with a full membership and tackle the problems coming from operation.

 

What are your future plans?

As I’ve mentioned, we are going to organise a conference on youth employment with the contribution of different related actors. We are also encouraging the locals to organise similar advocacy events, and if they need any support or material, please approach us. One of our other tasks is to recruit new members for the Working Group, so if you feel the eager to get involved, step up!

 

Do you have a Facebook or Twitter page in order to follow your work?

Not yet, but we really hope it will be launched soon.

 

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona

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Luca Bisighini is Our Policy Officer on Migration ../../../2016/02/25/luca-bisighini-is-our-policy-officer-on-migration/ Thu, 25 Feb 2016 12:44:05 +0000 ../../../?p=33521 Refugees and migration are two very hot topics right now. The interest in the topic led the Comitè Directeur to create a mailing list and a Facebook group dedicated to migration, and right after Autumn Agora Kyiv an open call for a Policy Officer on migration was issued. Luca Bisighini, from AEGEE-Brescia, was selected and he has already started working… Read more →

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Refugees and migration are two very hot topics right now. The interest in the topic led the Comitè Directeur to create a mailing list and a Facebook group dedicated to migration, and right after Autumn Agora Kyiv an open call for a Policy Officer on migration was issued. Luca Bisighini, from AEGEE-Brescia, was selected and he has already started working on his policy paper. Moreover he is Lisa Gregis’ SubCommissioner working on Human Resources and IT.
12046864_10207880581627972_2338207069630122346_nThe AEGEEan: Please describe yourself

Luca: A little disclaimer, in every AEGEE event I’m attending I’m trying to be partially funny and partially serious. Definitely I won’t miss this chance to still do it at my best.

My name is Luca, I am a 26 years old specimen from Brescia, Italy, representing AEGEE-Brescia. I am an MBA student in International Business graduating in April. I lived in three countries outside Italy (Canada, Poland and Turkey), I am a long lasting traveller (over 40 countries visited), I am proud to have friends from more than a 100 countries and definitely I am an unconventional music enthusiast like very few on the planet and a “culturaholic”.

What is your experience in AEGEE?

I have been in AEGEE for almost two years, enough to do two Summer Universities, an Agora, a Network Meeting and participate in two events (one currently on in Amsterdam). Last year I was the Social Media Manager of AEGEE-Brescia, while this year I am the IT Responsible and I decided to do something more for the whole Network by joining the great SubCommissioner team of the Rainbow led by the extraordinary Lisa Gregis (AEGEE-Bergamo) and apply to later become Policy Officer on Migration.

12063425_10207880636349340_4153341620632995906_nYou are the Policy Officer on Migration. What does your job consist of?

I am the individual in charge of making the Policy Paper on Migration that will be presented to be ratified (hopefully) at Spring Agora Bergamo. It consist of making a lot of researches on the current situation of migration, no matter if it is based on paper studies or just getting news. It also means getting a specific background on several policies and frameworks, knowing different opinions arising from the whole Network, while making them aware to a  certain extents on the “AEGEE Migration in Europe” Facebook group or in the Migration-L list.

You recently launched a survey about migration. How many replied? Can you give us some preliminary insights?

I launched it on January 9th after getting some important hints from the European Planning Meeting Content Managers, from Svenja, Pablo and Anna from the CD, The Chair Team, from Jorge (Policy Officer on Civic Education), from Nils and especially from Selin Sivis, former AEGEE-Ankara member and PhD student on Migration at MiReKoç in Istanbul.

Results were beyond expectations: 219 replies from 88 antennae in 30 countries, almost 2% of all the AEGEEans. Those results got me six days of cluster analysis to read all the 36 x 219 answers (I don’t want to know what number it may result from that multiplication). These numbers mean a lot: despite the length of the survey, a lot of people were eager to contribute to this new field of expertise AEGEE wanted to focus on in order to create a solid opinion on such a delicate topic and contributing to my Policy work as well. For other insights, I will soon be at the AEGEE Fair to present the results to all of you. I hope you’ll come there in Leiden on Saturday 27th, from 1 PM until 3 PM, to discuss, debate, ask questions and so on!

12107237_10207880693110759_4215966343289275737_nWhy do you think it’s important to speak about migration in AEGEE?

It’s important to discuss about it, due to a wide series of reasons. I’ll try to summarize them all into a general concept. Nowadays in Europe there’s a lot of debate about which can be the most effective measures to implement for refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants. In most cases, the national public opinion had many conflicting opinions, thoughts and took some actions about these issues. At European level, the whole emergency for quite a while was underestimated and this underestimation led to poor results, lack of coordination and socio-political tensions in both domestic and multilateral paneuropean scenarios.

AEGEE needs to discuss a lot about migration as an international association of students which strives for a border-less, diverse and democratic Europe, where freedom and human rights are essential elements of a European society and which is built upon the foundations of respect, tolerance and solidarity. I think these words, taken from the Statement of Principles approved in Agora Zaragoza 2013, are perfectly fitting with this topic and it’s time for us to take position about it and not just do nothing and stay silent while these events are happening.

12019915_10207638357812528_8254013164128367019_nWhat do you expect from the discussion in Leiden?

I expect two things for two separate kind of people:

– For the people who are not aware with this whole crisis, to be sufficiently informed in a very precise way, about what is going on in Europe: raising awareness is always the first step for everyone in order to later take actions.

– For the people who are currently aware, to cooperate and contribute with their expertise in order to be as much as possible useful in creating a fruitful, detailed debate on the topic.

Anyway I just wish to all of them four great days of democratic debate full of great opinion exchange.

You are also a SubCommissioner for NetCom Lisa Gregis. What are your tasks?

It’s a very cool thing to cooperate with the Rainbow Watchers [my SubCom colleagues, N.a.] to help 22 antennae in both Italy and Malta. It allowed me to help great people and to get closer to certain antennae’s problems in order to solve them. My tasks are HR and IT for the whole 22 locals, and supervising AEGEE-Milano and AEGEE-Brescia when needed. And of course, report everything to Lisa and help the other Watchers when needed.

12193360_10207929659094878_6888266617222637242_nWhat are your plans in AEGEE for the upcoming months?

As a Policy Officer I will make the Policy Paper on Migration for AEGEE-Europe. It will be great to cooperate on this important step for our association, then i will probably participate as Policy Officer on one event in Turin, Italy, organised by UNITED named “Moving Stories: Narratives of Migration Crossing Europe”. Then I will continue working as SubCom…I want to rejuvenate AEGEE. About HR I will see, I have few ideas in mind, but still have to discuss with Lisa and the team.

Regarding the plans in my local, there are still some IT/Social Media things to deal with, Incoming for the upcoming local SU, and to participate at Spring Agora Bergamo as a Delegate. You’ll see me on the stage also for the Policy Paper and maybe for some other applications. I have a lot of ideas in my mind and my contribution to this association I think will get bigger.
Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona

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Member of the Month Pablo Hernández Rodríguez: “Motivation is having fun with what you do and with the people you work with” ../../../2015/02/12/member-of-the-month-january-pablo-hernandez-rodriguez-the-key-to-motivation-is-having-fun-with-what-you-do-and-with-the-people-you-work-with/ Thu, 12 Feb 2015 16:34:24 +0000 ../../../?p=28636 Pablo Hernández Rodríguez, former president of AEGEE-Alicante, Policy Officer, team member of Democracy in Practice and member of AEGEE-Thessaloniki, is the member of the month for January. Pablo thought we were joking when we informed him that he’s the member of the month. He is currently working on his position paper on Youth Employment focusing on the Transition from Education to… Read more →

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Pablo Hernández Rodríguez, former president of AEGEE-Alicante, Policy Officer, team member of Democracy in Practice and member of AEGEE-Thessaloniki, is the member of the month for January. Pablo thought we were joking when we informed him that he’s the member of the month. He is currently working on his position paper on Youth Employment focusing on the Transition from Education to Working Life. For him the key to motivation is having fun in what you do and with the people you work with.

The AEGEEan: How do you feel about being member of the month?
Pablo: At first I thought that it was a joke or something that had nothing to do with me. I’ve worked in AEGEE for a good few years already and I have spent a lot of time and effort on the different activities I have been involved in so, for me, being elected member of the month means that what I’ve done has had an impact and has been relevant to achieve our goals. I’m really excited about it.

Tell us five words that describe you best.
Hard worker, curious, passionate, open-minded, detail-oriented.

How did you find out about AEGEE?
I was surfing on the internet searching for something to do in an international environment and I found out that in Alicante there was a youth organisation that was organising something called Summer University. I decided to attend one of their events and it turned out to be something that I liked and wanted to try more. I can’t imagine my last few years without AEGEE!

What have you done in AEGEE so far?
I have been involved in many different bodies of AEGEE. When I became active I was elected secretary quite quickly (in four months) and one year later, president of AEGEE-Alicante. I was developing and starting very interesting and successful activities and projects such as the Buddy Programme that now involves around 700 people. At that time I started getting involved at the European Level.
Last year I became Policy Officer in Youth Participation getting some responsibilities in the Europe in Exchange project and doing some activities with AEGEE-Thessaloniki. I felt so comfortable having all these tasks that I just followed the natural development that was continuing to be a Policy Officer (now in Youth Employment) and getting involved in the Democracy in Practice project.

What is your greatest achievement in AEGEE? Why?
I would mention two. First, the previously mentioned Buddy Programme. Having dealt with the University of Alicante for almost two years, after several meetings we managed to set this programme up which has increased in number from 30 people in the first edition to more than 700 in the last one.
Second, the achievement that I’m proud of is the approval of the Position Paper on Youth Participation in Democratic Processes because I spent a lot of effort investigating, gathering the opinion of the members and writing it. It’s great to see that AEGEE agreed on it.

You are really active all those years you are member of AEGEE. What keeps your motivation up? Is there anyone who inspires you?
Indeed I’m really motivated, even when I was Erasmus in Thessaloniki I was pretty active and worked a lot in AEGEE. For me the key to motivation is having fun with what you do and with the people you work with. I have been very lucky to always find great people around me. That’s all I can say.
If I have to mention one person that has inspired me, then Miguel Gallardo is that person. He has shown me the most important thing needed to work in AEGEE, which is team spirit.

You are Policy Officer for Youth Employment. Have you decided on which topics you are going to focus on your Position Paper?
Yes, together with the Comité Director we agreed on focusing on Transition from Education to Working Life because AEGEE is a student organisation, and so our main objective should be to relate education and employment. In this sense, we would like to tackle some subtopics:

– Recognition of non-formal education. Skills mismatch.     

– Entrepreneurship     

– Quality of jobs     

– Quality internships     

– Discrimination/ Inclusion of minorities  

What are your future plans?

My future plans are finishing the Position Paper and helping the rest of the Policy Office with common tasks, trying to make the best out of my positions by attending external events representing AEGEE. I also have to work on Impact Measurement of the Democracy in Practice project which is a milestone to make the project successful.

Written by Lia Tuska, AEGEE-Sofia/AEGEE-Thessaloniki

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Visa Freedom Working Group has been abolished ../../../2015/01/23/visa-freedom-working-group-has-been-abolished/ Fri, 23 Jan 2015 16:09:47 +0000 ../../../?p=28064 Visa Freedom Working Group was abolished during the Autumn Agora in Cagliari. Even though the Working Group stood against visa within Europe and helped the members with their Visa issues, the Working Group itself was not active anymore, so the abolishment was the right call. The AEGEEan asked Alfredo Sellitti, Policy Officer on Youth Mobility and former member of Visa… Read more →

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Visa Freedom Working Group was abolished during the Autumn Agora in Cagliari. Even though the Working Group stood against visa within Europe and helped the members with their Visa issues, the Working Group itself was not active anymore, so the abolishment was the right call. The AEGEEan asked Alfredo Sellitti, Policy Officer on Youth Mobility and former member of Visa Freedom Working Group, about the abolishment and what will happen next.

 

Visa Freedom Working Group was created because everyone dreamed of a borderless Europe and with freedom of mobility to all students and youngsters in Europe: Visa represents the impediment of this dream to come true. There are still countries where it is required to have Visa in order to visit other EU countries.

For every event organized by AEGEE, there are for sure some participants who will need support with their Visa issues. AEGEE is providing them useful tips and all the support they need so they can apply for Visa.

The Visa Freedom Working Group was initially called Visa Freedom Fighters Working Group, but in 2009, they deleted the word ”fighters” because it had an agressive meaning.


Being asked about the impact that the Visa Freedom Working Group had, Alfredo said “During its’ best period of time, it was a great tool for raising awareness among members about visa issues, and helping locals to deal with invitations and the necessary bureaucracy to allow members who needed a visa to participate actively in any event around the network. Luckily, first the Schengen agreement and the increased number of bilateral agreements afterwards reduced the number of Countries needing visa to travel to / from EU Countries to few, consisting today in the EaP (ed. Eastern Partnership Program) Countries and Russia, reducing considerably also the target of the Working Group itself.”

The Working Group was active, present at Spring Agora Alicante in 2011, then in Skopje in autumn, EBM Izmir 2012, Spring Agora Enschede 2012, at Summer Universities in 2012, Agora Budapest 2012 and Agora Rhein-Neckar in 2013. During all of these events, there were either workshops or they prepared something for the Fair, like games, maps, videos, useful informations or quizzes.

The abolishment of the Visa Freedom Working Group was the right thing to do, because the WG was not active anymore and just to keep it „alive” because it was active once, was not the right choice to do. Even though, the abolishment does not change very much. Alfredo, as a Policy Officer on Youth Mobility, told us that “Events are still being organised Europe-wide and locals can count on wide-spread information. The Comité Directeur, the NetCom, the EaP Project, even me as Policy Officer on Youth Mobility are there to help any local which may need any help to host an event or to send members to any event around Europe. It’s not just a Working Group who creates knowledge – we are the Europe we want to be.”


Written by Raluca Radu, AEGEE-Cluj-Napoca


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Introducing Policy Officers of AEGEE-Europe 2014-2015 ../../../2015/01/11/introducing-policy-officers-of-aegee-europe-2014-2015/ Sun, 11 Jan 2015 15:18:00 +0000 ../../../?p=27612 During Autumn Agora Cagliari, Policy Officers were established as a body of our Network. President Paul Smits and Secretary General  Antonija Parat on behalf of the Comité Directeur presented a proposal to formally establish them in order to set some rules. The proposal was accepted with an overwhelming 94.49% of votes in favour. The position of Policy Officers was launched… Read more →

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During Autumn Agora Cagliari, Policy Officers were established as a body of our Network. President Paul Smits and Secretary General  Antonija Parat on behalf of the Comité Directeur presented a proposal to formally establish them in order to set some rules. The proposal was accepted with an overwhelming 94.49% of votes in favour.

The position of Policy Officers was launched in 2012 by the Comité Directeur 2012-2014 to  to express the  views and concerns of the Network and bring them up to the policy level. The Network has now four new Policy Officers who will work for one year on the Focus Areas of the Strategic Plan 2014-2017 (Youth Mobility, Youth Employment, Europtimism and Civic Education). But this is not all. The Comité Directeur (CD) 2014-2015 decided to also address two other topics this year, namely Education and Gender Equality. Six positions were created, but the CD strongly encouraged applicants to develop their ideas on a topic that was not mentioned, but could be important for the Network. A lot of applications suggested the topic of LGBT so the CD decided to appoint a Policy Officer to work on that topic too.

Pablo Hernández Rodríguez, Policy Officer on Youth Participation

For the second year in a row Pablo Hernández Rodríguez willwork as a Policy Officer: “Last year I was Policy Officer on Youth Participation, something that helped me to develop skills to work better on Youth Employability now”, he says. Member of AEGEE-Alicante since 2010, he became active in AEGEE right after Agora Alicante 2011 “having strong references like Miguel”. Being a Policy Officer (PO) for the second year is a spur for Pablo: “I decided to continue as PO mainly because now I’m better prepared to work on this position being in the place where I can contribute the most”. As uncertain as it is nowadays, Employment is a big issue for youngsters and according to Pablo “AEGEE understood its responsibility and put this issue on the stage so, now, what we need to do is to give solutions and support initiatives that make us think positive in this field”. He continues: “I think that young people have to have proper internships and future perspectives in their labour live, something that I want to put a lot of effort into. It’s also very important to look for a solution for the lack of local job opportunities so young people don’t have to go to capital and big cities or abroad but also find job places in their home towns.”

Teo Šarić, Policy Officer on LGBT

Teo Šarić is the Policy Officer on LGBT. Member of AEGEE-Zadar, he got motivated to apply for the position of Policy Officer when he “was a member of the Y vote Bus tour in UK, a campaign to engage First Time Voters in the Elections of the European Parliament in May 2014. We were speaking a lot [about LGBT ed.] with people on the streets about this topic”. LGBT is the suggested topic and for Teo “very important to AEGEE because a lot of young people are feeling insecure and do their “coming out” when they are students. So it’s nice to see that there are people who are interested to help, advice and support you and who are working on the topic in your own association”. Teo has a lot of experience with the topic of LGBT issues, being one of the organisers of the Pride Parade in Split (his hometown) and in Zagreb. “The first gay pride in Split in 2011, where anti-gay protesters were throwing rocks, tin cans, tomatoes, tear gas and glass bottles at the LGBT activists, motivated me to be an activist. It was very sad and emotional to me to watch, sit and do nothing. I had to take actions”. For his work as Policy Officer Teo has a clear idea: “I want to make sure that no one is taken down by the actions, language and attitude of others. It is particularly important that everyone demonstrates mutual respect and avoids any attitude that would be hurtful or dismissive. It is important that we are aware of our own attitudes and actions, and that we are willing to challenge our own prejudices in a constructive and respectful manner”.

Alfredo Sellitti, Policy Officer on Youth Mobility

In the aftermath of the deletion of Visa Freedom Working Group, visa issues and youth mobility have never been so important. The Policy Officer on Youth Mobility is Alfredo Sellitti, member of AEGEE-Salerno since 2006. “Youth Mobility is a wide concept. If we want to bring it to our interest, I would say that youth mobility is a great (if not the first) engine to build up a real European civic sense, in the broadest possible meaning”, Alfredo says. “This tool is probably the most powerful to increase cross-border competencies that will influence, besides the natural effect on personal development, a civic development and boost the economy by bringing new experiences and know-how in the system”. When asked why he applied for such a position, he stated that he “has always been interested in the policy making field, and when I was in CD I realised how little support we had from the Network, as the organisation had plenty of great ideas but not a good structure to canalise them. Therefore, when I saw the open call, I thought it was a great opportunity to keep  working on something I like and help AEGEE to improve its structure to better lobby for our interests”

Turgut Tosun, Policy Officer on Civic Education

Former president of AEGEE-Ankara, and member of the local since 2007, Turgut Tosun is the Policy Officer on Civic Education. “After spending years in AEGEE and gaining lots of experience, I decided to transfer what I learnt from my journey to other motivated AEGEE members”, he says. “It was my turn to help youth workers and activists with a subject that I trust myself. Then, I found myself writing my application for being a Policy Officer”. Even if we are living in democratic countries, there are many other theories that Europe is going through an anti-democratic process. “I believe that AEGEE will use civic education for strengthening and supporting members to be active citizens so that we can help Europe be more democratic and have young people who are aware of it”. Says Turgut, “In AEGEE, I think that we can integrate civic education in our local or regional training courses in order to raise the awareness of active citizenship and democracy among our members”.

Sofia Lobakina, Policy Officer on Education

One of the two girls elected, is Sofia Lobakina from AEGEE-Voronezh, who is Policy Officer on Education. Very active on the Local Level, this is her first experience on the European level, but she has “the motivation to contribute, a relevant experience to base my contribution on and an eagerness to learn more and develop the topic of Education in AEGEE”. Even if Sofia feels a huge responsibility in presenting the vision of the Network on the topic of Education, she finds that “AEGEE, one of the largest students’ organisation in Europe, is missing a clear basic position on the topic of Education, though we have some successful projects, like Higher Education Days (HED) and Europe in Exchange (EiE)”. She continues: “What is more important, is to advocate non-formal education and informal learning and their future recognition and quality assurance”. In fact, according to her vision, Education “is like a time bomb, the input you make now will be visible only in years. So the boldest experiments should be time-proved. However some things stay clear, high quality and equality are the basic points of it, and education is an always-going process and not just a place, list of courses or diploma”.

Miha Ilc, Policy Officer on Europtimism

Student of European Studies in Ljubljana, but now living in Estonia for his Erasmus, Miha Ilc (AEGEE-Ljubljana) is the Policy Officer on Europtimism. Tightly connected with his field of study, Europtimism is a “wide field, so it is going to be a really challenging task for me, but I’ll do my best. I usually compare it with a mosaic. There are different pieces that compose the whole picture (politics, economy, welfare, taxes etc.). Currently this “whole” in Europe doesn’t have a nice look and we need to fix it in the interests of all of us. Europtimism is at this point on the lowest level since the establishment of the European Union and the beginning of European integration, which is definitely not good for the future of Europe”. The scepticism on an united Europe is high, but for Miha “just criticising and observing it passively won’t change anything. Therefore we need active debates and discourses about the future of European Union.We have the capabilities and knowledge to improve the general opinion of the EU, to promote Europtimism and shape our future in a positive way. The only thing that we need is will and a long-term strategy”.

Léa Charlet, Policy Officer on Gender Equality

Léa Charlet (AEGEE-Paris) is the Policy Officer on Gender Equality. Member of AEGEE-Paris since September 2011 she was the Project Manager of the Y Vote 2014. Always a strong supporter of the thematic work within the Association, she now works for the Association of the friends of Franck Biancheri, an organisation which aim to promote the idea of our founder. “Gender equality is a topic I am extremely interested in for some year now, and since Agora Zaragoza I am trying to find people interested in the subject to start a project after the end of Y Vote. A lot of people were interested, so when the open call arrived I was ready to go for it and become policy officer”. says Léa. Her idea about gender equality is to reach a perfect equality where “everything is in the nature, let’s just not put people into boxes and accept the combinations around us. When we are dividing the world into Men/women we are taking a lot of people out of the equation”. Regarding her work she see that the mail concern is the awareness. “I think both me and Teo (Policy officer on LGBT, ed)  have this challenge to overcome as policy officer, that before being able to give AEGEE an official position, we need to make people aware of the subject, give the tool for people to think and then finally, ask for an opinion”. She concludes.

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Venezia.

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Be the change 2.0 ../../../2014/06/08/be-the-change-2-0/ Sun, 08 Jun 2014 10:20:18 +0000 ../../../?p=23129 Do you remember the article ‘Be the change’, which was published in The AEGEEan a few weeks ago? Did you have the chance to attend the workshop ‘Impact your university’ during the Agora in Patra? In case you didn’t, we got you covered with this article! ‘Impact your university’ was a workshop conducted by rootAbility, a social business that drives… Read more →

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Do you remember the article ‘Be the change’, which was published in The AEGEEan a few weeks ago? Did you have the chance to attend the workshop ‘Impact your university’ during the Agora in Patra? In case you didn’t, we got you covered with this article!

‘Impact your university’ was a workshop conducted by rootAbility, a social business that drives the sustainability transition of the European higher education sector by establishing and coaching student-driven and staff-supported sustainability units, teams and projects. They believe that universities and colleges should create new knowledge to solve complex sustainability questions. Universities and colleges are educating the decision-makers of tomorrow on relevant sustainability competencies. They should therefore reduce their organisations’ ecological and social footprints and assist regions in their sustainability transition.

Do you believe that you can change the world with a simple students’ project? Perhaps it sounds a bit difficult, but if you start small you can have an impact! As university students we are one of the biggest stakeholders in our society. With this manpower behind us, starting with our own institution can be a smart idea when changing the way we live. Later on you can always make it bigger. When rootAbility started, it began with the Maastricht University’s Green Office in 2010. They took sustainability matters into their own hands, the student’s hands.

In the workshop, rootAbility communicated the tools and steps you need to implement your own project. We learned that it is not so much about having ideas but more about executing them. Concrete planning should therefore play a major role before jumping right ahead and try to change things. Thinking about possible problems, strategies to mitigate them and ideas on how to engage the stakeholders for the project are necessary activities to ensure later success.

Photo by: Elise Bessieres

Using a project canvas, sustainability projects were identified through problem analysis, planned according to their needed resources and activities that were mapped corresponding to the desired outcomes. However, no one can plan a whole project in such a short period of time completely. Learning that further steps such as writing a project plan or proposal are required to move on was also a part of the workshop.

We can learn a lot from the business world, even when implementing sustainability projects. Taking the tools you need from different disciplines and working together with students from various study backgrounds further contribute to a project’s realization. With resources that are accessible at your university such as its infrastructure, the knowledge from professors and peers, its reputation or the university’s network, every student is in a unique position to impact their direct surroundings, while also improving your university experience.

Besides, the life skills learned in project management are widely applicable, and more and more employers are seeking graduates that have such additional skills. So, the knowledge acquired when executing a sustainability projects can be used later on and complement university curricula. At the end of the day you have the power to have an impact on the society! Think big, start small and change the world for the better!

In case you have any questions regarding student-driven and staff-supported change projects for sustainability, do not hesitate to contact iris.hordijk@aegee.org, or visit Rootability.

 

Written by Iris Hordijk, Policy Officer on Sustainability

 

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Be the change! – Workshop at Agora Patra ../../../2014/04/14/be-the-change-workshop-at-agora-patra/ Mon, 14 Apr 2014 20:26:27 +0000 ../../../?p=22330 Just close your eyes for a few seconds and think about nature on our planet. Do you see the glistering of the oceans in the sun, the colourful flowers in the fields and can you hear the birds in the forest? Amazing, isn’t it, what our planet looks like today? A source of life and diversity on all different levels… Read more →

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Just close your eyes for a few seconds and think about nature on our planet. Do you see the glistering of the oceans in the sun, the colourful flowers in the fields and can you hear the birds in the forest? Amazing, isn’t it, what our planet looks like today? A source of life and diversity on all different levels and in different appearances…

From the beginning of our existence the human race has always put its stamp on the earth by changing the environment. With the growing world population and the consumption based economy there is no spot on the earth which is not influenced by us. Nowadays, humanity consumes the resources of 1.8 planets and we will need 3 planets by 2050 if the present trend continues.

A solution for this problem would be a more sustainable lifestyle and mind set. Sustainable means that the things we do right now could go on forever and don’t deplete the resources we have. Sustainability will increasingly determine the way we live, do business, vote and understand ourselves as a human species. The change to a sustainable way of living in this world therefore is the challenge of our generation.

University of Lund , Sweden

What could be a better place to start with the change to sustainability than universities? They are the institutes where our knowledge and understanding expands every day by research and teaching. Universities create knowledge to solve sustainability questions. Universities should practice what they preach, so be sustainable themselves as well.

Being a sustainable university goes further than separating the garbage and insulate well, education is a very important factor too. Students are important agents of change to steer the sustainability transition of universities and colleges. As Europe’s largest interdisciplinary youth organisation, AEGEE has a huge potential to sensitize students for the opportunities that the sustainability transition offers and how they can positively contribute to it.

Logo RootAbility

Are you challenged to make your university more sustainable? At the Agora in Patra the organisation rootAbility will conduct a workshop on how to make your own student driven change project possible. RootAbility is a social business which drives the sustainability transition of the European higher education sector, by establishing and coaching student-driven and staff-supported sustainability units, teams and projects. They believe that universities and colleges should create new knowledge to solve complex sustainability questions, educate the decision makers of tomorrow on relevant sustainability competencies, reduce the ecological and social footprints of running the organisation and assist regions in their sustainability transition.

Ever thought your university could do more with sustainability? Learn how to actively impact your university’s transformation process with your own student-driven change project!

Be the change!

What: Workshop Impact your university
When: Thurday the 1st of May
Where: Spring Agora Patra

 

Written by Iris Hordijk, Policy Officer on Sustainability

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Who owns the world? The borders of patents ../../../2014/02/25/who-owns-the-world-the-borders-of-patents/ Tue, 25 Feb 2014 10:10:46 +0000 ../../../?p=21646 Have you ever thought about who earns money from the use of local plant species from South America for a commercial medicine produced in Northern Europe? Or who possess these plants the medicine is made out of and the way the plant is used? To be honest, I didn’t before I attended the Master class of Sustainable Development in Belgium… Read more →

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Have you ever thought about who earns money from the use of local plant species from South America for a commercial medicine produced in Northern Europe? Or who possess these plants the medicine is made out of and the way the plant is used? To be honest, I didn’t before I attended the Master class of Sustainable Development in Belgium organised by the environmental organisation Act4Change.

Participants of the Masterclass on Sustainable Development

When you can’t earn money with something, it isn’t attractive to start with it. That particular idea was the main inspiration to introduce the system of patents in Europe. Although the ancient Greeks already started with something that is related to our patent system today, it is a hot topic nowadays. Patents are mainly introduced to stimulate the creativity and inventiveness of companies and people. A patent is a form of protection that provides a person or legal entity with exclusive rights for making, using or selling a concept or invention and excludes others from doing the same for the duration of the patent. You can buy a patent for transgenic modified animals, plants or single human genes, but not for specific plant breeds for example. A product or idea has to be new, inventive and be able to be used in some kind of industry in order to be patented.

To come back to the question that opens this article, I would like to present the biological view of the world as a gene pool. The genetic sources we have on this earth are in fact the health insurance and security for our future. Every single gene available can help us find a medicine against diseases now, and especially in the future. In the Northern hemisphere, most of the genetic richness of the Earth is collected in certain gene banks. Those banks can become very important in the future. Perhaps a disease will break out and affect all the corn of the world and the corn disappears, than we can make new corn out of the genes we have. Most of the genes in the genetic bank come from the South, because that hemisphere has a higher level of biodiversity in comparison with the Northern hemisphere.

Do patents protect ideas, or rather steal them?

The link with patent rights is that researchers from the Northern hemisphere can come to the rain-forest and bring back plants with traits that help them to find a medicine against a disease. By getting a patent, they can earn a lot of money by producing the medicine, because no one else is allowed to produce that particular medicine. At the same time, the local people in the rain-forest didn’t get any money from a treatment they may have been using for ages, and that is now copied by the researchers. The question is if and how the local people should benefit from it as well. Who owns the world and who should benefit from what is growing on it? In the case I described above, it should not be allowed to get a patent for it, because it is not a new kind of medicine, but a treatment already used for ages. Still, the patent is given is many cases. A lot of times the discussion within the group ended with: is it ethically justified that our economy is purely money and benefit based?

Well, that is quite a big question to answer and I won’t burn my fingers on it right now. But there is something changing for the good in this process of granting patents. Recently there is a Protocol composed that aims for the equitable and fair share of the benefits arising from the using the genetic resources. This international agreement is named the Nagoya Protocol, and is part of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The European Union is now in the implementation phase of the Nagoya Protocol, and we should make sure that the practical outcome of the protocol will be fair for the whole world.

 Written by Iris Hordijk, Policy Officer on Sustainability

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