They were labelled as two of the favourites of the tournament and they have made their road to the final. Argentina and Germany will face each other tonight at 21 (CET) to earn their glory at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Purely based on statistics, no European team has ever won the Cup when the Championship was held in the American continent.

Germany and Argentina play a very different concept of football. Argentina probably has the strongest player in the world, la pulga (flea ed.) Lionel Messi. Germany, instead, worked as a collective and was not depending on one player. “Being champions is really something very important for a country and also for the players, who have sacrificed so much to get here”, says the Argentinian coach Alejandro Sabella. “Become champions in Brazil would be an even greater pride”. From his side, Joachim Löw, Germany’s coach, says that “Argentina is not only Messi, this team is better than four years ago, much better organized. But if we exploit our quality, we will win”.

In fact, this is not the first time Germany and Argentina will face each other in the final. In Mexico 1986 it was Argentina who won 3-2 and four years later, in Italy in 1990,  Germany took his revenge winning 1-0. Today, it is the third final that both teams will play in the legendary Estádio Maracanã with the Italian Nicola Rizzoli chosen as the referee. Five is the number of World Cups currently owned overall by both teams (three for Germany, two for Argentina).

But what happened during the direct elimination matches?

Round of Sixteen

Brazil won over Chile 4-3 (after penalties) in a very well-balanced match. Colombia showed their strengths (and confirmed themselves as one of the surprises of the tournament) after beating Uruguay 2-0 thanks to two goals by James Rodríguez, one of the best players seen in the Cup. Mexico was initially winning against Netherlands, but Wesley Sneijder and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar overthrowed the results. Ticos from Costa Rica beat the Greek team after penalties, and lead the American team to the quarterfinals. Germany and France defeated the surviving African teams, 2-1 against Algeria and 2-0 against Nigeria, respectively. Argentina won 1-0 after extra-time to Switzerland, whereas the last qualified for quarters was Belgium, who beat the US after extra time on 2-1, reaching their first quarterfinal since 1986.

Quarterfinals

Germany – France, the great European classic, finished with a 1-0 result that allowed Germans to reach their thirteenth semifinals in the FIFA World Cup history (the fourth in a row). The Colombian dream came to an end against Brazil after losing 2-1. But the Seleção (Brazilian team nickname ed.) paid a very high price: Neymar was hit by Zuniga and rushed to the hospital. For him, the Cup was over and Brazil lost his most promising player.

Argentina- Belgium was already written and the Albiceleste won for 1-0. The last quarterfinal saw the favourite Netherlands struggle to win against the ‘cinderella’ Costa Rica. After the extra time, the result was still 0-0 and the Dutch coach Louis van Gaal replaced  the goalkeeper Cillessen for Krul in the very last minute. Krul saved two penalties, and brought the Netherlands to the semifinals.

Semi-Finals

Brazil and Germany, a déjà-vu for most football lovers, finished in the most unexpected way: 7-1 for Germany. Five goals from the Germans in 30 minutes against a Brazil that seemed far away from the field. Without Neymar, Brazil appeared disband and unable to finalize anything.

Exciting as the first semifinal was, the second one was dull and soporific instead. The game was not decided either in the regular time or within the 30 additional minutes of extra time, and closed at 0-0. During penalties Argentinian goalkeeper Sergio Romero neutralized the penalities kicked by Ron Vlaar and Wesley Sneijder. On the other hand, Argentinians did not miss a shot, winning 4-2 and heading to the finals.

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Venezia

The World Cup of football, organized by FIFA (La Fédération Internationale de Football Association), will kick off in Brazil today June 12th. Brazil is known for being a football-loving country but protests across the country lately have shown that it is far from the everybody in Brazil who are happy that the world biggest football tournament will take place in their country.

Picture courtesy of Ben Tavener, Flickr.

Lots of promises have been made to the population of Brazil. Hosting a large event like the World Cup is expensive and obviously, in order to convince people that it will have a positive outcome, commitments such as an improvement of the infrastructure, modern airports and improved hospitals were made by the government, but they haven’t been completed yet. Sidharta from Saõ Paulo, Brazil, says to The AEGEEan: “I am not happy about it, which is a feeling shared by many Brazilians, and most of my friends. We are unhappy about the amount of money spent, when we have too many problems regarding education, the public health system, security etc… Also, there is a feeling that too much money has been diverged by corruptive politicians and people who are part of the organization of the Cup in the Brazilian side. Another important issue is that years ago, when our government committed to host the Cup, a lot was said about the legacy of the Cup. But now, we feel betrayed, since the so called legacy wasn’t fulfilled. Important promises, like the modernization of the airports, the high-speed train and accessibility improvements were never made. Also, since one year ago, when the protests began, the government have responded with too much violence. I think the more important benefit of the Cup was to open our eyes for the way our politicians have been conducting our country for years. I am just worried that once the ball starts to roll over the green field, the Brazilians forget that bitter reality and close the eyes and ears again.”

An example of this is the city of Natal where teams like Mexico, Cameroon, Ghana, Japan, Italy, Uruguay, Greece and USA will play and stay. At this beach destination the agreement was to build a light rail work, a new hospital, a beach front face-lift, and wheelchair-friendly sidewalks. After five years of preparation for the World Cup only little besides the arena and an untested airport were built.

The signature project for the World Cup was a $16bn high-speed rail service linking Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo but that is another thing that can be added to the list of infrastructures not completed. The President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff argues that it takes time to build the urban transportation system and completing large engineering projects.

Still, lots of money has been spend on the hosting of the event. Money that, as Sidharta mentioned, the Brazilians would prefer to see getting invested in the health and education system, sanitation, a better transportation system and much more security. Even the Brazilian football hero Pelé, by many claimed to be the greatest footballer of all time, has been critiquing publically the excessive spending of money that should be spent on schools and hospitals and not on building stadiums across the country. However, Eduardo Paes, the mayor of Rio, says it is private money that largely has been used for the financation of the venues and that the public money is being spend on legacy such as transportation, sewage and bus corridors that connect the venues with the isolated areas of Rio.

Picture courtesy of Ben Tavener, Flickr.

A survey by Pew Global shows that the dissatisfaction with the government’s direction has grown from 55 to 72 % in just one year. About six out of ten people believe that the World Cup has a negative effect, taking money away from public services, while others believe it gives the country a negative image especially due to all the unrest and protests taking place in the country since the Confederation Cup held last year.

As recent as one week ago the activists of the Homeless Workers Movement marched the streets demanding the government to invest in matters such as subsidized transportation, education and the health system. That protest went by peacefully but several of the protests have been receiving critique of the violence surrounding and especially the reaction by the security and police forces.

Ozgun Kaplama the Speaker of the Sports Working Group of AEGEE (SWG) says to The AEGEEan: “It’s the second time the World Cup happens in Brazil but this one will be interesting. As international society we all know Brazil for their football players, coffee and samba but I think examples like Arab Spring, Turkey and Ukraine give a trust to citizens who are uncomfortable about the problems. They want to show other sides of  the country. There are too many protest related to the competition, and people are against the expenses especially. Some stadium constructions are not ready yet. Protesters are more interested in social support than the World Cup. Also last year at the FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil there were some protests, and police used violence. Some fans who will go there as tourist are afraid about their security. We, the Sports Working Group are watching these actions closely, because it is related with our missions. But on the other hand we’ll watch the World Cup because we care about the sport for our ideals. Also there are some discussions about World Cup 2022 in Qatar. It will be the first time the competition will be held in the Middle East, so that is quite interesting too!”  

Sabina Begic who is the PR responsible of the SWG has been following the World Cup since her childhood and at one side believes that it is great for Brazil to show one more time how it is the land of football, how its national history is linked to football and to be the best host of the World Cup ever. As she has a few professional sportsmen in her close family, she received a sponsored opportunity to follow the World Cup in Brazil but she declined and she explains why: “After I survived four years of war for me security is the most important issue, and the security situation is unstable in Brazil considering the eco-political situation. Also, as much as I love football my full support and understanding is on the side of the Brazilians who are protesting and are angry over the expense of the World Cup.”

Picture courtesy of Thomás , Flickr.

However, it is not all negative. The Pew Global survey also shows that 34 % believe that hosting the World Cup is positive for Brazil and that it will create jobs in the twelve host cities. Also another poll as of June 2^nd shows that 51 % are in favor of the tournament and 42 % against.

Ieda from São Paulo, Brazil, says to The AEGEEan: “I think we all are one way or another looking forward to see it finally starting… Some will be relieved, some angry, and some like me will be just thrilled! I love to see all this energy from people coming and joining the party, but I know it’s not everyone’s feelings. There are a few Brazilians who are rooting against the world cup, as if it would solve all of our problems, and they insist on causing all kinds of political, economic problems, either by strikes or by spreading fake news and/or misinforming the population… But if our national team wins it, it will be just that: a victory. We’ll be all happy, we will celebrate and after a few days of partying and carnival, things will be the same again. So why not enjoy the moment?”

Picture courtesy of Jorge in Brazil, Flickr.

It is clear that something needs to be done. The country is filled with violent protests, dissatisfaction and the World Cup is only few days away. Furthermore, Rio de Janiero is the host city of the Olympic Games in two years from now in 2016 and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have also been loud with their critique, questioning the country’s ability to organize two large events at the same time. The Olympic Vice President John Coates said in April that the preparations for the world biggest sport event have so far been the worst he has ever seen, leading the IOC to increase the amount of visits and placement of experts in the local organizing committee.

With both events it is important to ensure the legacy for Brazil and to solve the issue of the violent protests. Miguel Gallardo from the Comité Directeur says to The AEGEEan: “I think a World Cup in Brazil assures a  great deal of spectacle, with a public which will vibrate with each match. I just feel  they missed the opportunity to create the necessary structures so  the event has a sustainable impact for the whole society. More and more news arrives about corruption, lack of labour rights and abuses, and the country seems to have adopted a critical attitude towards the world cup. Being Brazil, that’s a sign that something did not work. I hope they at least learned the lesson for the Olympics”. 

There will always be pros and cons and many questions to ask oneself regarding the matter of politics and sports. Sport and especially football enthusiast Armenak Minasyants, who is the Policy Officer for European Neighbourhood Police in AEGEE, says to The AEGEEan: “It is a quite complicated situation to deal with, but it also hugely depends from the angle you approach the situation. Yes, in Brazil there is a huge number of unemployment, quite high level of organized crime and corruption, and the people are lawfully protesting and asking for the better life conditions. But does the WC2014 (not counting financial aspects) really have much to do with the internal Brazilian problems and non-well state administration and governance? Hasn’t such dynamically developing country as Brazil deserved the right to host the WC2014 for the first time since 1950? If we observe the situation from a dramatic political point, I would be the first person to demand cancelling the WC2018 and WC2022 in Russia and Qatar respectively, due to numerous violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in these countries. But is it really in benefit of sport and the millions of people following it? It’s my conviction that sport may really unite the people, the nations and politicians for creating better conditions of life for everyone.”

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-Zaragoza

Featured Picture courtesy of Upeters, Flikr

Recently it was shared with our Network that the host of the AEGEE Olympics is AEGEE-León: a strong and motivated antenna that is already working hard on organising a big event for 200 people in October. The AEGEEan interviewed Daniel Garcia Rodriguez, Local Activities Responsible and Sport Responsible of AEGEE-León, in order to get to know what is going on in the life of their antenna.

Sunny León

The AEGEEan: Can you tell us a bit about your local?  

Currently we have about 100 members, and 35 of us are very motivated and active members who work every week in our sports and local activities, trips with Erasmus, thematic parties, workshops, and participating in AEGEE events in all Spain and Europe. When we talk about each other we say AEGEE-León is like our other family, and at this moment we think that is time to show it to the rest of Europe with this incredible and thrilling project “The first AEGEE Olympics with the SWG”.

You are one of the locals involved with the European Voluntary Service program. How are you involved in it and how has the experience been so far?

We are a young institution accredited in the EVS (since September 2012), as sending, hosting and coordinating organisation. We applied for our first volunteer and fortunately we got someone. She has been with us since February and will be here until June 2013.

As sending organization there were many solicitors. We have planned to send AEGEE-León members as volunteers to other countries during the next year. When you see that all your efforts are paying off, you feel good about it. The EVS is a very important opportunity to get experience, and it is a very good solution to youth unemployment and a strong training alternative in Europe. So we want to continue being in the EVS, and encourage other antennae to join it.

A Sportive version of Leoncio

Furthermore, your mascot is nominated again for the cutest mascot award for The AEGEEans Choice Awards. What makes him so popular, and do you think he will win again?

Yes, we are very proud of Leoncio. We know he will win because he has the AEGEE spirit: he travels a lot, he is a party animal, he is interested in savannah affairs and he seeks cooperation between other mascots.

Also, you are organizing the same Summer University for the third time in a row? What makes your Summer University so special, and what is changed about this year’s edition?

Our two last versions of St. James’ way were really successful, in 2011 we got the first place in the ranking, in the second version in 2012, we got the third position so the results were still amazing. This year it is a Summer Course, not a Travelling Summer University (TSU), so we will try to get even closer to environmental issues. And we want to open it for disabled people, in particular blind people. It is going to be a huge challenge but we are sure we will succeed.

León university

You are one of the locals that use sports a lot in your activities, but maybe not everybody knows about it. Please tell us how you use sports in AEGEE-León?

We use sports as an important tool to connect to our local Erasmus students. These moments of sport are one opportunity to bond with them and to promote the integration and team spirit. This way the Erasmus students can have a nice afternoon with AEGEE-León.

In implementing this, we cooperate closely to our university – they let us use their facilities to play two hours of football every Monday, two hours of basketball every Thursday and two hours of volleyball every Friday. Usually we have around 30-40 exchange students participating in these activities, and AEGEE-León members enjoy playing with them each day. Also, four to five times during the year we organise a world championship of football: one part is general (male and female) and other part is for female teams.

Which leads me to the AEGEE Games – why did you choose to apply to host the first edition of this event?

When we first heard about the AEGEE Olympics inspired games we immediately thought that it could be a very good opportunity to host an interesting sport meeting. Our faith in our strong cooperation with our university because of all the sports we already do with them, and the fact that we have many motivated and active members hoping to organise a good event lead us to develop a very good project.

The motivation of AEGEE-León is very inspriring and The AEGEEan hopes that other antennae will follow their example and focus on the thematic aspect of AEGEE, Working Groups, and strong Summer Universities.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

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

Determining how to make AEGEE a more active organisation thus contributing to combating physical inactivity in Europe is on the agenda of the Sports Working Group (SWG). Part of the key to the answer is to organise events, loads of events to reach as many members as possible.

Let’s move it  – Lets Shake it up  Europe – Sport as tool for Summer University (SU)

If your antenna wants to make this summer more active and healthier, the SWG is here to help you incorporate physical activity and sport in non-formal education in your SU. SWG is a brand new Working Group of 2012, full of eager and motivation, ready to come closer to the Network and combat issues such as racism and homophobia in sports which can all be used in the organisation of a SU. Many SUs have already had the theme of sports last year including Brescia, Madrid, Oviedo, Athens and many more; the SWG hopes to make SUs even more sportive this summer, at the same time incorporating the action agenda of AEGEE in this . At the moment the SWG is in talks with the Scandinavian Dream Summer University, organisers AEGEE-Helsinki and AEGEE-København, as well as AEGEE-Tiranë trying to make their SU more active and hopefully more antennae will use the SWG in their SU.

Using the famous games to organise a motivational event

A few weeks ago the SWG issued its first Open Call asking for a local to host an event inspired by the Olympic Games. The SWG recognises a lack of a motivational event that gathers members from all over the Network, with the aim of cultural exchange, team-building and social activities and it has the belief that sports can create the surrounding for such event. The SWG aims to organise an inspiring as well as motivational event of a duration of four to seven days that could open up for a stronger co-operation between antennae and potentially an opportunity to cooperate with other interesting organisations such as ESN, AIESEC, BEST and more, which could have members interested in taking part in such events as well. The SWG values Youth Participation highly and it has been agreed that having such event where members can network not only within AEGEE but also with other associations will help better AEGEE. Since there is still one more week until the deadline of applying to be host of such event, the SWG will keep all opportunities open and is eager to receive mails tick into their gmail account.

Whether it comes to having SUs focus on inclusion of minorities, or being active in youth participation organising interesting events such as AEGEE Olympics, the SWG keeps developing ideas on how to contribute to combating physical inactivity and on non-formal education through sports with the Action Agenda in mind. Hopefully a strong collaboration between local level and European level will reaffirm the SWG and the Network that the SWG has a great potential working together with antennae from all over Europe.

Written by Sabina Begic AEGEE-Wien, and 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

The Sports Working Group (SWG) has been using this summer to find its grounds. Thus, being approved at the Agora Enschede, the SWG is well aware that there will always be members of our Network with the strong belief that sport has no place in AEGEE, however the SWG board members are together with the SWG members wearing yes-hats filled with arguments why the SWG is here to stay.

Building the foundation of SWG

The new SWG logo

Any working group needs a lot of base work to function. Luckily, the SWG has talented members both from the Juridical Commision (Diana Tupchiienko) as well as the Public Relations Committee (Vahagn Keshishyan). So you have probably read about Diana’s help with organising the SWG elections and in the month of July Vahagn helped the SWG with creating the logo. The logo election was set up so that all members of the SWG (as well as the rest of the network) could contribute with suggestions and then eventually the SWG members would vote on different logos in order to find the first SWG logo. Vahagn came up with a stylish suggestion for the SWG in four different versions. The final logo is not only stylish but also versatile since it comes in two different colours, perfect for online as well as offline use.

Sportive AEGEE people in the Summer University organised by AEGEE-Burgos

Promoting the Summer Universities

Not being completely ready to organise a sports event, the SWG chose to reach out the Summer University (SU) organisers as well as the Agora Budapest organisers in order to organise an Expo featuring the Summer Universities which this summer made the effort not only to participate in the most popular AEGEE project, but also use sportive activities to make sure that SU participants had a good time and connected in a greater way. So far AEGEE-Burgos, AEGEE-Oviedo, AEGEE-Maribor and AEGEE-Leiden have contributed with photos and the deadline of submitting pictures is not before September 1^st, so the SWG is confident that this expo will work.

Moving it for AEGEE

But the SWG is not only working on the Agora. Approximately four weeks before the Agora sets off in Budapest there will be a so-called MOVE week in progress. This initiative is organised by the Danish Association of International Sport and Culture Association (ISCA) which strives to have physical active events all over Europe in the first week of October. The SWG sees the MOVE Week as perfect post-summer opportunity for AEGEE antennae to organise a get-together event with their members. What could this be? AEGEE-København is trying to organise a sports tournament between AEGEE, AIESEC, ESN and such in the Danish capital. People against the Sports Working Group could, and probably would, argue that such event is exactly why they opposed the SWG at the Agora, because sport clubs can organise football games.

However, Patricia Anthony from AEGEE-København explains why such tournament could help: “In AEGEE-København we do not have a lot of active members, and we are looking for opportunities to bring members closer to AEGEE. We believe that organising such thing with e.g. AIESEC can help strengthen the communication between these organisations. That way we hope to get more visibility, increasing the interest in AEGEE, and bringing the ones who are already members of AEGEE-København closer to each other. We can see that friendships and strong connections can be the base grounds of the organisation o great events and motivating people to become more active in AEGEE in countries like Spain, so we figured that we can try to do the same thing. This way we will help AEGEE, the SWG and AEGEE-København as well as supporting a great project as the MOVE Week initiated in Denmark, all at the same time.”

The SWG hopes that other antennae will join AEGEE-København and the Sports Working Group with moving it and/or organising an event in which some professors, sports people or sport event organisers can give their expertise on how sport can be implemented in non-formal education all over Europe in the first week of October.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København & Secretary of the Sports Working Group (SWG)

This summer more than 30 Summer Universities contaning content related to sports will be organised by young Europeans in AEGEE locals all over Europe. They include everything from rafting to canoeing, scuba-diving, bicycle trips and much more. It is not only the Summer Universities (SU) that use active activities to promote volunteering, non-formal education and learning. Sport activities in general such as basketball and football matches, running together on a weekly/monthly basis, skiing trips, demonstration of typical dance from different countries and much more is organised by the different locals during the year. All these facts were the reason for and used in the AEGEE-København presentation of “Learning through sports in AEGEE” at SportVision2012. 

Why is sport relevant for AEGEE?

”AEG… What is that?” that was the question that I was asked the most times while participating in the SportVision2012 conference in Denmark this week. 400 participants from 38 countries gathered in the Danish capital for a conference which focused on volunteering in sports, non-formal education and health.

Why is this relevant for AEGEE you may ask? Well, at first I signed up for having making a presentation about sports in AEGEE at their open fair market partly due to my personal interest in sports: I have volunteered several times previously at sport events; I am a huge football fantastic and I have been working at the national stadium of football in Denmark for about four years. Another motivation was to make AEGEE-København take advantage of having such a big conference in Copenhagen with politicians, non-govermental organisations and companies from all over Europe.

Sports as an instrument of improving team work

When preparing for the conference I reached out to our Network to gather information about sport activities

taking place in AEGEE. There is a wide range of activities going on such as local basketball games, running teams, and AEGEE football teams e.g. in Alicante. “This past winter, we set up a football-7 team made up of AEGEE-Alicante members, who play in a local league in our town.This made people who did not know about our association join AEGEE and furthermore it has been a perfect opportunity to introduce sports in our antenna and create a new weekly activity for our members. This initiative makes us feel closer to each other and, of course, it improves teamwork,” explains Alvaro Quiñones from AEGEE-Alicante.

Move for AEGEE

AEGEE-Nijmegen takes part in something called the Batavierenrace in the Netherlands every year. This is a a running competition between the cities of Nijmegen and Enschede, in which every year a lot of the Dutch locals take part. This year, AEGEE-Nijmegen team has joined forces with runners from Groningen, Eindhoven, Utrecht, Leiden and Amsterdam. The focus is rather just to take part of it instead aiming for a victory, because in the end it is a fantastic opportunity to connect the locals.

Related to this project we have the “MOVE WEEK” which is an annual European wide campaign, which takes place all over Europe in the first week of October. The initiative was promoted during the SportVision2012 Open Market Fair where they got different individuals to commit to participate in a sportive or physical activity hopefully a lot of antennae around our Network will follow their lead.

I-just-want-to-make-you-sweat Summer Universities

Furthermore what I also discovered is that more than 20 of the Summer Universities organised this year in AEGEE have at least one activity related to sports. It is especially antennae such as AEGEE-Oviedo, AEGEE-Athina and AEGEE-Canakkale that have experience in organising sportive Summer Universities. AEGEE-Oviedo is this year organising for the 6th year in a row a SU with sports thematic (SUperAction). AEGEE-Athina have never organised a SU solely based on sports but have always included sportive activites such as beach volley and waterpolo. However, this year they are focusing on the Olympic roots of their city in their summer course (SC) “Let Me EnterTrain You” with sportive activities such as sea sports, beach sports, sport competitions, and workshops about topics such as the Olympic Games and sports in modern life.

Setting up the Sportive Working Group

As previously mentioned AEGEE-Canakkale also organised an active Summer University last year. The Summer University coordinator of that was Hakan Unal Jr. who originally is from Ankara, then moved to Canakkale and these days he is a member of AEGEE-Kyiv. However he contacted me for another reason: setting up the Sportive Working Group (SWG) of AEGEE. This topic resulted in being the main focus of the “Learning through Sports in AEGEE” presentation at the SportVision2012 due to its high relevance for the conference, me, and for our Network. If approved by the Comité Directeur and the Network the SWG will be a group of AEGEE members sharing an interest in any kind of sport, international affairs, and which uses the power of sports to unite people from different cultures. This will happen through actions such as training courses, organising AEGEE Olympiads, workshops, online blogging and much more. However, The AEGEEan would like to stress that nothing is official/certain yet.

Can you imagine your life without sport?

In the end this conference opened up my eyes for how many sportive activities are and can be taking place in our Network. At the beginning of the conference European Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou of Education, Culture, Multilingualism, Sport, Media and Youth asked “could we imagine our lives with sports?” Even though this was a conference for sports interested people I believe that if you ask many people that exact question the answer will be no. Sport brings us joy, sport can teach us and sport can unite us, we should use that even more than we already do in AEGEE!

Thank you to Alvaro Quiñones for helping with the provision of photos for the article.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København