Last but not least, we introduce the proposal Reforming Working Groups, Policy Work and Action Agenda execution, proposed by Mayri Tiido, Ivan Bielik and Paul Smits from the Comité Directeur. If accepted, this proposal will radically change Working Groups as we know them.

When, during Autumn Agora Cagliari, the Visa Freedom Working Group, was deleted, it was clear that Working Groups are not working anymore. The problem was highlighted already during a survey launched before the Agora where all (former) members of Working Groups could give input. A Progress Meeting was organised by Mayri Tiido and Ivan Bielik from the Comité Directeur, which was useful to investigate the problem, but no conclusion was reached. This is one of the reasons that pushed Mayri Tiido, Ivan Bielik and Paul Smits (respectively Projects and Communications Director, Human Resources Director and President of AEGEE-Europe) to write a proposal to make some (huge) changes.

The proposal Reforming Working Groups, Policy Work and Action Agenda execution aims to change the current Working Groups (namely Culture WG, Human Rights WG, Sport WG, International Politics WG, Education WG, Enviromental WG, Language WG) from struggling bodies to bodies who will work. The idea is to merge the work of Policy Officers and Working Groups on the Strategic Plan fields. Basically, for every Focus Area of the Strategic Plan there will be a Working Group that will start its term on the 1st of August, having all of its activities approved by the Comité Directeur. Internally, it will create activities related to the Strategic Plan and externally it will represent the position of AEGEE-Europe in its field.

Each group will be lead by an appointed memeber, the Coordinator, who will choose the Policy Officer; along with six other AEGEE members (at least 4 locals shall be represented). The group will present an Activity Plan during the Autumn Agora, an Interim Activity Report during the Spring Agora and an Activity report during the following Autumn Agora.

This proposal aims to solve two problems in our Association: the functioning of the Working Groups and the fullfilment of the Strategic Plan. During the last Autumn Agora, only 30% of the Strategic Plan was fulfilled, which is a worrying sign of the lack of  committment of members and locals towards the thematic part of our association. At the same time Policy Officers cannot be in charge of a specific field by themselves. With the new Working Group, the proposers hope to increase the participation in the Strategic Plan and its fields with a new functioning organ which can support locals, create activities and be an expert in the respective field of action.

All the existing Working Groups won’t disappear for good, but they will be transformed into Interest Groups. They can be created upon request from an interested AEGEE Member and they will be open to anyone. Each Interest Group will have two moderators who will send a report to the CD every two months and an overview to every ordinary Agora. In case of a lack of moderators, CD has the power to dissolve the Group.

You can read the proposal here and follow the discussion about it in the forum here.

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Venezia

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.

To prepare you for Spring Agora Patra we already wrote a series of articles under the name of Proposal for Dummies, and with Autumn Agora Cagliari coming close it’s time to do it again! This time, we decided to include the people who know the most about the proposals, namely the proposers! Read on to find more about the proposals dealing with the nationalities in the Juridical Commission and formally establishing the Policy Officers.  

The first proposal is named Required nationalities in the Juridical Commission and was proposed by Glòria Llopart, Claudio Gennaro and Joris Veenhuis on behalf of the Juridical Commission. As Glòria explains us: “I thought it could be a problem for the future of the JC that in a team of four people, there must be three nationalities represented. Actually that would not be a problem if the JC would have more candidates that apply, but that’s not the case. The current JC team of Commissioners and Subcommissioners shows this potential problem very well, so let’s give an example: there are two Dutch, two Italians, one Polish and one Spanish in the team, so in the next Spring Agora it can turn out that the two Dutch apply. The third candidate and the appointed CD member must have not only a nationality that is not Dutch, but also a different one between both. What would happen if the third candidate is Dutch and nobody else applied? Could (s)he not be elected because of her/his nationality although (s)he has well-founded legal knowledge? The CIA should ensure the future of the JC.”

The Juridical Commission therefore proposes to change the minimum required nationalities in the JC from three to two. “If the proposal is accepted the continuity of the JC will be more guaranteed”, Glòria explains us. “Moreover, there will be more possibilities to build a good team because the rules will be more flexible. The most important characteristic of a Commissioner is to have legal background. Other requirements should be taken in a second level.” The changes to the Statutes of AEGEE-Europe for this proposal can be found here.

The second proposal is named Formally establishing Policy Officers and was proposed by Paul Smits and Antonija Parat on behalf of the Comité Directeur. As the name already says, it aims to formally establish the Policy Officers. As Antonija explains: “In our Activity Plan, we stated that we aim to clarify the role of Policy Officers, and in line with that, we were discussing the possibility to introduce definitions on Policy Officers in the CIA, since their role is not regulated at this moment. We were planning to do it during Agora Oviedo, but we saw that there was a need for clear definitions as soon as possible. Policy and advocacy is defined as one of the means we use to achieve our goals, and we need Policy Officers’ contribution for this. Therefore we believe that we need to officially introduce the position of Policy Officers in the CIA and set up some basic rules.” To do this, the rights and responsibilities of the Policy Officer will be added to the CIA, with the desired effect of bringing more continuity to the policy and advocacy work of AEGEE, better execution of this work and clearer definitions of the role of Policy Officers.

The full proposal and the changes made to the CIA when it’s accepted can be found here.

Written by Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen

What do AEGEE members understand when talking about sustainability? Where did they learn about this? And how would they like AEGEE to be involved with this topic? Finding out the answers to these questions was the aim of the survey on sustainability which was completed by almost 120 people from over 60 locals all around the network. Both multiple choice and qualitative answers were analysed and quantified, and will serve as input for AEGEE’s position paper on sustainability.

Sustainability is…

… a buzzword/often misunderstood/a way of thinking/ a clear path for action/ all of the above. One thing is clear: ask 120 people about their understanding of sustainability and you will get 120 different answers. This can however only enrich the debate, as a concept as complex as sustainability can only be understood and operationalised by looking at it from multiple angles at the same time. So — at risk of generalisation — what do AEGEE members think of sustainability?

Sustainability is the way of living, creating public policy and economic growth that takes into account environmental issues and will help to preserve natural resources for future generations.”

This explanation by a respondent from AEGEE-Poznań perhaps succeeds the best at capturing the wide range of ideas and definitions collected through the survey. For when analysed the answers fell broadly into a number of categories, of which the most important keywords are (in order of frequency): Future, Resources, Green, 3 elements, and Balance.

One in two respondents focus on long-term thinking and planning, preserving our planet and quality of life for future generations. This requires a different approach at resource usage and the introduction of closed-loop production and consumption systems. While many respondents mentioned the classical 3 components of sustainability — economy, society, and environment — and the balance between them, over 20% however, still see sustainability in a predominantly green light.

Education for sustainability

So even though 91% of respondents have at least some notions of sustainability, there is still some room for improvement. How much do AEGEE members — and youth in general — know about sustainability, and how much of this did they learn at school? It is true that the basics are being discussed in primary and secondary school — think water cycle and geography field trips —, but this “decreases as you pass to the next level of education, as the education becomes more specific and ‘serious’”, says a member of AEGEE-Valladolid.

Almost three in four respondents feel there is not enough attention for sustainability within formal education and 48% even estimate that sustainability-wise their time at school was a waste of time, with another third only learning a little about it.

On the other hand less than 25% believe they don’t know enough about the topic to do anything themselves. So where do people get their knowledge from then? This is where non-formal education (NFE) comes in, says Bogdan from AEGEE-Bucureşti: “I only found out about this from my AEGEE local.”

For one in three respondents, NFE is also a more suitable method for teaching sustainability than formal education. “Non-formal education is better in showing people ways to live more sustainable instead of simply telling them what to do”, says Wieke of AEGEE-Leuven, and Nolwen (AEGEE-Toulouse) continues: “Sustainability is about reforming our societies deeply and fundamentally, it therefore requires non-formal education, out of books, it requires to learn by doing, by discussing.”

Time for action

While playing a big role in teaching young people about sustainability, NGOs (28%) score significantly lower than e.g. national government (33%) when respondents are being asked to rank 6 stakeholders in order of importance to take initiative in making life more sustainable (weighted average 30%). It is therefore crucial to cooperate with all stakeholders in pursuing sustainability, including national and local government, business, youth and other NGOs, citizens’ initiatives, and individuals.

What role do respondents then see for organisations such as AEGEE?

Like many things, sustainability starts at home. For Guillermo Garcia Tabares of AEGEE-Barcelona, we should “first of all establish some obligatory criteria for all events. Secondly, create best practices which are easy to follow.” Only then, he says, should we start working on bigger projects. Again analysing the answers, we can see that respondents suggest a number of possible approaches.

More than one in five support Guillermo’s proposal for internal sustainability standards, while slightly more people would like to see Environmental Working Group and others to provide assistance to members and organisers to become more sustainable. Most respondents favour the raising of awareness and spreading of knowledge through workshops, but as this was not a multiple choice question, this serves mostly as a first step towards a more active engagement. Finally, remarkable are also the 15% who suggest raising our voice externally, by lobbying institutions for more sustainability or partnering with other youth organisations.

And now?

Credits to Jjpacres on Flickr

After defining the topic and conducting a survey to gather the first input, the next step is to launch an online consultation on the topic of sustainability — more in particular education for sustainability. This process will be informed by a lay of the land in Europe, and will define the basis for future lobbying for more attention for sustainability in both formal and non-formal education.

On sustainable entrepreneurship, the second subtopic proposed at Agora Budapest, not sufficient knowledge and outspoken opinions seem to be available within AEGEE at the moment. While I will continue to research the topic and share useful opportunities, it might be too soon for AEGEE to take a position on this. Rather, more time and efforts should first be invested in raising people’s understanding of, and experience with entrepreneurship as such, e.g. through successful projects such as the European School on Entrepreneurship or collaborations with Startup Pirates and other specialised initiatives.

Written by Mathieu Soete, Policy Officer on Sustainability

The question asking what your personal opinion on homophobia is was the main focus of the first online consultation by policy officer E.G. that took place this week. The topic was not kept so much on personal opinions but did open up for many interesting areas in which AEGEE can progress on the topic of homophobia.

A mentioned before, combating homophobia in sports is a topic on the agenda of the Sports Working Group and therefore it took me only a few seconds to forward the invitation for the online consultation on homophobia by policy officer E.G. Unfortunately, the invitation was issued to ANNOUNCE-L on the day of the meeting making it quite difficult for members to plan ahead to attend it which also could be seen in the participation in the actual meeting. Nonetheless, it was still very interesting and granted knowledge about the situation of homophobia in the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Denmark that Eline can move forward with.

Big city equals big minds and small city equals small minds?

First of all, the members of the meeting discussed the situation of homophobia in the different countries. On one side you would find countries quite religious such as Greece and Spain and less progressed in the terms of acknowledging homosexuals and on the other side there would be countries more open towards homosexuals celebrating gay parades, allowing gay marriage, adoption and more such as Denmark and the Netherlands. In one country it can be completely normal for straight people to go to parties at gay bars with their homosexual friends without friends and strangers questioning your sexuality whereas in other countries entering such a club will put a label on you in 30 seconds or less. Why do homosexual people go to parties at clubs filled with heterosexual people all the time, but if the tables were turned the frequency of club visits is much lower? This topic is not only something that has been discussed in this online consultation but has also been a suggestion that came forward when the Action Agenda Committee brainstormed on ideas for Activities for Summer University (SU) organisers to add to their preliminary program: take the participants of the SU to a gay club/bar, and it will be interesting to see if this will actually happen this summer.

Back to the online consultation, the talk went on, and the topic of big cities versus smaller cities did occur and it was discussed whether people in larger cities such as the capitals would be more open-minded than people from smaller cities. It was a pity that not more members could add information about the topic since we have members in AEGEE of a large range of different sizes. Hopefully that will happen in the next online consultation on this subject.

Are we more open-minded in AEGEE?

Question number one: Do you stop and stare in if two people of different genders kiss in public? Question number two: Do you stop and stare if two people of the same gender kiss in public?

This was an interesting topic of discussion that continued the meeting because it is not a rare case that people tend to look twice if they see something they are not used to. They might not mean harm, whereas in some cases they will try to be funny which ends up hurting other people but the reality is that when one thinks twice about the situation we might not be as open-minded as we think in AEGEE. This meeting made me wonder if we are open to inclusion of minorities in every single way in AEGEE or if the situation could be better.

In the end everybody agreed that the state of this subject differs very much from country to country and this raises the matter if it is even possible to achieve something within this area or if it is too delicate to discuss. Some people think that gay people do not exist, others use disgraceful taunts at homosexual people, and others welcome them with open arms (and hearts). Does this differentiation make it too difficult to work with homophobia in AEGEE? The Sports Working Group does it and Eline is not afraid either to take on the subject because as she said “if we don’t try then we don’t know if we can succeed!”

The session was one of many online consultations that will take place, and hopefully more people will join the discussion next time.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

Did you see the survey? Did you answer the questions? Did it make you stop and think about how homophobia affects the world? It is not only the Policy Officers of Social Inclusion who work on homophobia, the Sports Working Group touches upon the area as well in the first Activity Plan of the Sports Working Group (SWG).

When discussing the Activity Plan (AP) of the SWG, it was not easy to reach agreement on certain areas. High ambitions and eagerness to impress the Network and Europe were challenges when piecing together the AP of the SWG. One of the difficult areas was the idea of discussing about homophobia in football. This is an area that is rarely touched upon. However, that was one of the reasons why the secretary Patricia Anthony was so eager to make this discussion part of at least the next year’s plan of the Sports Working Group.

Seeing the e-mail to the Network from the Policy Officer last week about the topic of homophobia, added even more inspiration to try to achieve something in this topic, and homophobia in the masculine sport of football is also in the attention of the media these days.

Danish national football goalkeeper and player for Manchester United Anders Lindegaard blogged about this topic last month and reveals that according to numbers 12 percent of the male Danish population is gay, however, none of the approximately 1000 guys associated with Danish professional football have declared themselves as homosexual. Lindegaard  has the impression that the problem is not to be found within the football teams but more to be found amongst the fan culture based around football. He then goes on to say that a recent published study from the “British Journal of Sociology” shows that 93 percent of the British football fans would support homosexual football players. This surprises him, as well as Patricia Anthony, but then again, it might be easy to agree upon supporting such minority, but it takes no genius to understand that any minority or person who stands out from the “normal” will be an obvious victim for physical terror, so the actual outplay of any situation will not be known before it actually happens. However, what can be surprising is that in some places the fans are openly admitting that they do not support the club having players representing sexual minorities, such as in the Russian football club of Zenit Moskva.

The Danish Football Federation (DBU) is being pushed by many people to create a campaign, in order to be the front leader in the campaign of accepting homosexual people, hopefully leading to some players coming forward with the truth about their sexuality. However, DBU argues that they are not interested in getting involved with people’s sexualities by making such a campaign. Lindegaard then argues that such a campaign will not encourage people to become gay, but rather promote that any hatred created because of homophobia is unacceptable in the game of football, just as is the case with the fight against racism. Not doing anything indicates that there is no problem, which is far from the truth. However, doing something will be a step towards making the boys that quit playing football feel accepted by the society, and it will be an inclusion of minorities. Homophobia is not only an issue in football, since football is far from the only masculine sport with history of either macho men or popular Beckhams or Ronaldos with their stunning wives and girlfriends on their side. However, being such a popular sport with so much media attention and federations involved with the game, football has the opportunity to be the front leaders of this topic, the question is simply, where does it start?

Tackling this issue is not easy, and that is also why it almost did not make the Activity Plan of the SWG. However, seeing the development of discussion in the media about it, and following policy officers trying to dig in research material about homophobia have assured the SWG board that this interesting discussion is of high relevance of the SWG and AEGEE. This is definitely not the last that you have heard about it.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-Kobenhavn and Secretary of the Sports Working Group