While many AEGEE members were spending their time green travelling with the destination Mannheim, the Sports Working Group (SWG) was hosting a football tournament for the ones already in the city.

The idea behind the active afternoon was not only to raise awareness about physical activity but also to inform members about the topic of racism in sports. In a collaborative project between the SWG and Policy Officer Stephanie Müller, Agora Rhein-Neckar was used to consult AEGEE members about racism.

At the time that the football tournament took place not many had arrived in Mannheim yet and a large part of the ones who were there were taking part in city tours. However, there was no need to call off the match since the motivation was there, so instead of being AEGEE members playing against each other, it turned out to be a little group of AEGEE members playing against some locals from Mannheim.

While the active representatives from our organization were sweating on the field under the summer sun, the rest cheered them along while also filling in surveys about racism in sports created by Stephanie Müller. Later on during the Agora the questionnaire was used again during the AEGEE fair and these are only the first steps in the research of AEGEE people’s opinion on the topic.

Back at the match the spectators saw a large number of goals being scored by the footballers, and in the end it was a victory on the field to the AEGEE team. Outside of the team the small but interesting event is also considered a victory. It proved raised awareness amongst our members about the connection between sport and racism and it also underlined that there is an interest in such sportive activities in our organization. There might not have been many people able to take part in the game, but many showed interest in the outcome, and the Sports Working Group has afterwards received numerous requests to repeat the event before Agora Zaragoza, in even larger dimensions.

Written by Patricia Anthony, Secretary of the Sports Working Group

A few weeks ago, policy officers spammed our mailing lists demanding the members to fill in the surveys for their thematic researches. Now is the time to reflect on their results. The survey on human rights recognition, launched within the topic of social inclusion, revealed surprising results. In AEGEE, we state in our principles that we stand for human rights. Do we know what are we referring to?

Who protects my rights?
The most curious results were brought by the simplest questions of the survey. Only half of our members have never read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is the basic legal document of human rights protection. More alarming is the fact that only one third of the responders are aware about the mechanisms (institutions, laws) which protect their rights in Europe.

Perception of human rights
Depending on the country we live in, the viewpoint on the rights changes. The survey was filled by members from the different parts of our network. The Dutch expressed their satisfaction with their situation: in their country human rights are respected almost in all spheres of society. The Spanish mentioned angrily that the right to work disadvantaged mostly young people at labour market. Russian or Hungarian members urged to reinforce freedom of expression in their home countries. In AEGEE we feel as a part of European society and it is time to face these issues all together.

The important thing is to begin
Every coin has two sides, and for me the biggest motivation to continue drafting a position paper on this topic was brought by the fact that every responder answered that AEGEE should support initiatives to foster human rights in Europe. The results expressed the dissatisfaction and motivation to change! Changes are needed in Europe if we want to live in a society where implementation of rights permits us all to have equal opportunities. The responders supported and suggested various initiatives to be taken within AEGEE to contribute to this aim. Especially two groups of rights were put in front to be tackled by our organisation: freedom of expression and social rights which affect directly young people.

Speak out!
The survey showed that AEGEE should urge the policy makers on European level to enable young people to express their political, religious, personal opinions in any European country. This should be implemented on the level of national states as well, and enable young people to actively participate in protection of their rights in democratic states.

Lucia at EBM Valletta

Social rights 

We all know the situation is not easy. We hear a lot about crisis, about problems to create working positions and to find the solution to this mess. What we can do, however, is lobby for change. The responders expressed that young people should enter a labour market where non-discrimination is granted. They should be given the opportunity to gain experiences and skills when starting their career. Regarding the education, the responders consider that the non-formal education should have the same value as formal education. Also, the system of higher education should be more coherent, giving students opportunities for mobility and recognition of diplomas abroad.

What’s next?
This survey was just the start of drafting the position of AEGEE on this topic. Your ideas can contribute significantly to its final version. You can join the online consultations as well, which will be taking place one hour before the Skype meetings of Human rights working group. During the consultation, we will deeply discuss the results of the survey and transform them into a draft position paper, which will be later on developed into a final version.

How can you contribute? Write me an e-mail and join the online consultation. Let your voice be heard and express YOUR opinion on human rights recognition in Europe. Let’s create together AEGEE’s position on this topic.

Written by Lucia Sobekova, rapporteur on Social Inclusion, AEGEE Europe (lucia.sobekova@aegee.org, skype: lussinka134 )

Photos are in courtesy of Gunnar Erth

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) topic is one of much controversy. In a world in which LGBT’s can marry in only eleven countries, there is still much to be done for equality in this field. Even within AEGEE, as the survey on homophobia shows, 8% of the members considers violence directed at LGBT’s justified because of their sexual orientation.

Despite the controversy, AEGEE-Europe acknowledges the importance of equality for LGBT’s. Therefore it decided to make homophobia one of its policy fields for 2012/2013 within the larger policy field of Social Inclusion. For above all, LGBT’s should be able to live a free life, not being encountered by a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward them. 

Plan of Action

It is important to get the conversation started– within AEGEE and with the world around us. This should be achieved through a survey, (online) discussions and cooperation with locals and working groups. The message of the network, emerging from the aforementioned actions, should be communicated to policy-makers by the means of a position paper, and civil society through campaigns.

As Policy Officer my goal for this term is twofold. I both want to capture the opinion of AEGEE, share this with policy-makers, and change the mindset within AEGEE in order to make the organisation inclusive towards LGBT’s. Your help is necessary. Please share your opinion by contacting me at […], and participate in the discussion by joining QUEER-L or one of the online consultations. Let’s change minds!

Written for the NetCom Times by: E.G., Policy Officer on Social Inclusion – Homophobia

Idaho might remind the geography brains about some place in the United States of America, but it is obviously not the Idaho that the Sports Working Group (SWG) will bring to AEGEE.

Lately, the SWG has been working with two policy officers on two different, but yet a bit similar subjects; organising events combating homophobia and racism in AEGEE. Recently, the SWG were the leaders in the project and Skype meeting with the aim of gathering the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG), SWG members and Policy officer E.G. The topic of the meeting and project is to create an easy concept that antennae all across the AEGEE Network can adapt to and organise events in connection with the international day against homophobia which takes place yearly on May 17^th. The day is also referred as IDAHO, and after a fruitful Skype meeting the possibilities to create a lot of awareness about a great cause and at the same time make AEGEE reach beyond where it has reached before are looking very good.

Are you yellow, blue or violet?

“What rainbow color are you?” was the question recently on the SWG Facebook page which made has created confusion amongst many people, but it is linked to the IDAHO campaign. A campaign that the SWG will continue working on together with Eline with the aim of getting as many antennae across Europe to join the rainbow flash mobs dancing and raising awareness about the fight against homophobia together with other national movements. This way youth participation and inclusion of minorities are both involved in the event.

Dancing is a sports activity that is easy to organise and furthermore sport is considered a universal language that brings people together. The aim with our involvement in IDAHO is to create awareness about the fight against homophobia and raise the interest in AEGEE and beyond, hopefully raising an even greater interest in organising many more events against homophobia in AEGEE both in and outside of the SWG after May 17^th as well.

As mentioned, the SWG will continue the work together with the HRWG and Eline on the topic in order to specify the project even more. However, any member with an idea about how AEGEE can become visible in the flash mobs is more than welcome to contact the SWG.

Combating racism as well

The policy officers have before been introduced in The AEGEEan, but it can still be a confusing reading about what exactly the policy officers are doing, so while in contact with policy officer Stephanie Müller, the SWG had the time to ask a few questions about her work so far.

SWG:  What have you been working on as a policy officer so far?

Stephanie: The topic I work on is “Racism and Xenophobia”, so far I have collected information on the topic, about its relevance for Europe and how racism & xenophobia is experienced in different countries in Europe. Therefore, at the beginning of December I send a questionnaire to the Network and got very interesting answers, which I will share with the Network soon.

It is very sad to see in how many European countries nationalists are raising and turning against foreigners, mostly immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. Particularly, in Southern European countries strong national and sometimes racist parties are raising and gaining more and more supporters.

SWG: What are your upcoming projects as a policy officer?

Stephanie: Like the other Policy Officers I will write a position paper against racism and xenophobia, for which I like to involve the Network as much as possible. I hope the Skype meeting about the international day against racism is just the beginning. I hope to be able to motive some locals to organise some events which are raising awareness of the fact that many people in Europe are discriminated because of their country of birth, religion, nationality or appearance. This is a very important topic we should not close our eyes to. Furthermore, I hope to raise the topic during the Agora Rhein-Neckar in a progress meeting and talk to some people of what could come next.

The Skype meeting that Stephanie is talking about is a project between the SWG and Stephanie aiming to gather AEGEE members and ask the question “What would you do in the International Day United against Racism?” If you want to join the discussion, then contact the SWG.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

Borrowing and having quality conversations with living books? Even though it sounds quite unrealistic this was exactly what AEGEE-Debrecen put into practice – presumably for the very first time ever – at the University of Debrecen.

A short history of Human Libraries

Having been invented for its visitors and also organised for the first time at the famous Danish Roskilde Festival in 2000, the “Human Libraries” (also called “Living Libraries”) have always aimed at helping to build social cohesion and a greater understanding for diversity in the community, locally as well as on a global level.

Fall Agora Budapest 2012 was the Agora of going back to the past. Returning to the exact location of the first Agora in Eastern Europe as we are dealing once again with resistance to European ideals. Debating on our identity in order to better understand ourselves. Launching new initiatives which will help AEGEE reclaim the prominent, strongly thematic place it once held in the European society. New ideas, new initiatives, new positions—for example the newly elected Policy Officers of AEGEE-Europe. At a progress meeting on Saturday afternoon, they presented themselves and their thematic fields to participants.

With six they are, working on four thematic fields: Youth Participation (Felipe González Santos), Bridging Europe (Armenak Minasyants), Social Inclusion (Lucia Sobekova, E.G., and Stephanie Müller), and Sustainability (Mathieu Soete).

Unfortunately, not all of them were able to make it to the Agora on such a short notice—they were elected after the applications had closed—but their topics were skilfully introduced by their sparring partners from the CD. During this meeting, they presented the future steps and actions planned, and discussed with participants regarding the subtopics to be tackled.

Youth Participation

After a brief introduction to the positions of Policy Officer and a general timeline of their work, Lucille Rieux kicked off the progress meeting with the topic of Youth Participation, representing the unfortunately absent Felipe González Santos (AEGEE-A Coruña). Youth participation is so much a part of AEGEE’s daily work that we take it for granted. Therefore, it would be good to question this obviousness, and to discover what we actually mean by it. “Participation” can be very wide, and finding a common definition is not an easy task.

Moreover, Felipe defined two main topics in which he believes there is room for advocating for AEGEE’s vision: participation of young people in the decision making process—including ideas such as the age of vote, e-democracy, education on the democratic process and systems as such—and participation of young people in their community, which encompasses the question of volunteers’ rights and recognition of volunteering. Finally, one more question was raised which will be interesting to focus on: should we encourage young people to participate using new forms of participation, or rather focus on the existing tools and try to understand why and how they could actually work better.

Bridging Europe

Even though accepted for the Agora, due to the recent diplomatic breakdown between Hungary and Armenia, the Policy Officer on EU enlargement and integration Armenak Minasyants (AEGEE-Yerevan) was not able to secure a visa to enter the country, and was therefore represented by Anna Gots. Her first challenge was the definition of the policy field itself. In order to clarify his field of work to externals, Armenak considered renaming it “EU Enlargement and integration,” but how far are we prepared to go in promoting a larger and stronger EU, and its resulting changes to our lives? In order to better understand this, an online consultation and discussion was proposed, to gather the opinion of the network on this sensitive, though very important topic.

Within this field then—or as a first step towards it, perhaps—participants agreed a lot of work still remains to be done in tackling visa issues in non-EU countries—the absence of Armenak himself being a living proof of this. In order to focus on a specific topic, it was suggested to cooperate with other youth organisations, and work on shaping clear regulations for obtaining visa for youth workers and volunteers.

LGBT

Next up were the three Policy Officers working on Social Inclusion, starting with E.G. (AEGEE-Leiden). Introducing the topic of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) issues during the Policy Officers progress meeting, several potential subtopics were discussed. Leading for this discussion, as well as for the future research on LGBT issues for the Position Paper that is to be written, was the roadmap published by the European Parliament titled Towards an EU roadmap for equality on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. Identifying both problems faced by LGBTI persons, and EU actions that have and can be taken in this area, this roadmap proposes five policy themes: equality and non-discriminatory access to employment, education, health, goods and services, and housing; trans and intersex issues; diverse families and freedom of movement; hate speech, hate crime, and violence; and, lastly, fleeing homophobia and transphobia.

Having explained these themes during the meeting, homophobia turned out the be the topic AEGEE was considered most likely to work on, both in terms of changing perceptions in Central- and Eastern Europe, as well as in striving for transborder recognition of same-sex marriage. Important is to opt for a European scope, finding views that relate to AEGEEans across the entire network.

Racism and Xenophobia

The second Policy Officer on Social Inclusion, Stephanie Müller (AEGEE-Heidelberg), proposed to focus on writing a position paper against Racism and Xenophobia. AEGEE, with its 27 years of existence as a student organisation, is the best proof that everyone can overcome prejudices and xenophobia. We should therefore clearly state that racism is not acceptable. AEGEE is an organisation proud of being open to everyone who is tolerant and respects each other’s cultural differences, without prioritising one culture over the other.

It is seen with a big concern how, in this current economical crisis, radical racist parties are winning disproportionally large votes in the national parliaments of European countries.  It is time for AEGEE to express our condemnation of racism and xenophobia. The topic was accepted with positive feedback by the audience of the progress meeting, giving Stephanie plenty of motivation and support to continue her work.

Human Rights

Concluding the Social Inclusion policy field, Miguel Gallardo presented the first work of Lucia Sobekova (AEGEE-Bratislava) on the topic of Human Rights Approach, as the way to decrease social differences between European youth. Current formal education does not cover the topic of human rights deeply enough in most of the European countries, which leads to the fact that they remain a foreign topic for most of the European youth. On the other hand, non-formal education can often be the best way to learn about human rights, in an experience-based, peer-surrounded environment, leading to a more tolerant society.

Consequently, there is a wide field where only NGOs can provide information, raise awareness and create mobilisation. In this field, most of the big NGOs do a great work for the society in general, but their messages have not always reached the youth sector. The work of Lucia will therefore be to establish a bridge between human rights and the European youth.

Sustainability

Last but not least, Mathieu Soete (AEGEE-Leuven) introduced his field of Sustainability. As sustainability is the only policy field not firmly rooted in the Strategic Plan, participants first discussed about its relevance for AEGEE’s work, agreeing that in today’s world, this topic cannot be overlooked any longer.

As a first subtopic, sustainable entrepreneurship—the theme of this year’s European School on Entrepreneurship—not only creates unique opportunities for young enterprising minds with a heart for green business, but also offers sustainable solutions to people looking to start up their own non-profit organisation or youth project.  Second, more attention and support is needed for education about sustainability, which can equip current and future generations with the tools needed for a more sustainable future, and which fits within the wide reform of our educational systems, formal and non-formal. Furthermore, in order to  increase the internal possibilities, the sustainability of youth organisations was taken on board as third subtopic.

4 fields, 6 Policy Officers, and enough topics for each and every AEGEE member to find a thematic focus for the upcoming year. We are ready for it, and are looking forward to your input!

Written by Anna Gots, Armenak Minasyants, E.G., Felipe González Santos, Kathrin Renner, Lucia Sobekova, Lucille Rieux, Luis Alvarado Martínez, Mathieu Soete, Miguel Gallardo Albajar, and Stephanie Müller

Two weeks before the Agora I attended a Round Table organised by the European Youth Forum in the European Parliament, focused on the repercussion of youth unemployment for social inclusion.

The high unemployment rates among the youth is not fresh news anymore; we have heard the figures so many times they do not scare us anymore. But I was shocked when the representative of the medical students highlighted the strong link between unemployment and health. Unemployment is a risk factor for drug addiction, depression and other psychological and physical problems. This point of view adds a new human dimension to the economic aspects of the unemployment crisis in Europe, and highlights how devastating can it be for a person to feel disconnected to society for some months, to have no hope of changing its situation, and how this can lead to social exclusion.

I always knew that unemployment has a bigger impact on the collectives that are excluded from society. What I could not assess clearly before is how steadily this unemployment crisis is increasing the number of people in risk of exclusion in Europe. If the situation continues this way for a long time, we will be dangerously coming closer to the no-return point of having a lost generation in Europe. Something that did not happen since the World War II.

NEET is a complex term which was created in the UK to give a name to the people who are trapped in the situation of Not in Employment, Education or Training for a certain period of time. The term has since the 90s become widespread in the world, with even translation to local languages (in Spain they are called the Ni-Nis (NI estudian NI trabajan). This group is the one highly exposed to the risk of exclusion. These young people are in the spotlight of the European policymakers as they are aware of the risks this situation poses for the European society in the future. They are looking to address this problem with decision, and they will adapt a system which is already working in Europe (e.g. Finland) with positive results, the so-called Youth Guarantee. What does this Youth Guarantee mean?

The Youth Guarantee is a compromise to offer every young person in Europe a job, further education, or a training, four months after leaving education or becoming unemployed the latest. The idea sounds great, and if implemented Europe-wide, it may help to reduce drastically the risk of a lost generation. However, the costs of its implementation will be high (although the economical studies determine that the pay-off is assured on the long term); and I sometimes wonder where those politicians are who were capable of thinking in the long run…

You can find more information on the Youth Guarantee here and here.

A curious case: According to their definition, as a volunteer working for AEGEE for one year I am formally a NEET (I asked and they confirmed this point). Strange enough, because in spite of the term I can say with no doubt that this year I am working as hell, learning everyday and putting into practice all my skills and knowledge into my tasks. In my case, I am a NEET by choice, and the same for my fellow CD mates, we took a break of one year from our lives to become members of the Comité Directeur. However, I bring another conclusion out of the fact that I am a NEET. Volunteering can be a great help for NEETs to avoid isolation, depression, and other negative consequences of being disconnected from society. They will be active and feel useful, they will learn a lot, they will gain skills that will increase their employability. Together with the Youth Guarantee, supporting the youth organisations can provide great results in reducing the risk of exclusion of a whole generation.

Written by Miguel Gallardo Albajar, member of the Comité Directeur 2012-2013