The world develops constantly and causes the changes of values, that people have. Scientists call our modern society “information & media-oriented”, because information has recently become the most important value. But is all the information useful? AEGEE-Utrecht tries to find the answer to this difficult question.

The most important and valuable resource in our modern society is information. We receive it every day, in addition such an enormous amount, which we can hardly analyze. Information waits for us everywhere – on television and radio, in newspapers and magazines, in the internet and many other sources. Information has recently become a good, which can be sold and bought, has its precise price. But what is also very important, information now needs to fulfill certain requests to be interesting to the audience. For example the message should be up-to-date, devoted to the topics, which are important for the audience, and be reliable.
«Reliability of the Media» is the characteristic, which everybody knows, but can hardly explain how to prove it. With local sources it’s simpler. For example if one of the local newspapers wrote a story about a fire in the house in the center of your city, you can easily go there and see if it’s true. But what to do with messages devoted to other countries? Of course, for AEGEE-people it’s not such a big deal, they have so many friends all over the continent, that they can easily write an e-mail and ask, what is now happening in Spain or in Malta, in Serbia or in Russia. But there are still the countries, which are not in AEGEE-list, such as China, India, Philippine islands and many-many others. The only thing that we can do with the information about these places is to trust Media.
AEGEE-Utrecht is now deeply engaged in the topic, how to prove the reliability of the information that you hear or read. They asseverate that there exist millions of different reasons, why the information can be changed before being published. President of the AEGEE-Utrecht pre-event commission Maarten van de Kuilen says: “Even the most reliable sources of information have to simplify things to make it understandable or readable for the public. But there are also a lot of players that influence the information and can force journalists to change it”. In addition, every media has its own information policy, and it can happen that the editor refuses from the materials, which go against it.
But it is not the reason to be afraid and refuse from all kinds of information you receive. First of all, every valuable medium proves the information that is going to be published – especially facts and numbers. And there also exist some methods how the readers can understand, if the information is trustworthy or not, just being attentively. If you are really interested in these skills, AEGEE-Utrecht especially for you organizes an Agora Pre-event: «Reliability of the media», that will be held from March 28 to April 2. During the event specialists in mass media field will share with the participants all the information about such mysterious players in the process of media production as information suppliers. The participants will be also instructed, what basic factors they have to pay attention to while analyzing the media information. If you want to be an expert in reliability of the media and to be always able to distinguish true and false, go see for yourself.

Written by Aleksandra Antokhina, AEGEE-Moskva

Last year, AEGEE-Utrecht organised a Winter University with the theme name “Try Before You Die”. This event took place in three different Dutch cities: Utrecht, Amsterdam and Gouda.

Before the event took place, the committee, consisting of Adinda Werkman, Josje Hiddink, Sanne Bleekers, Simon Bak, Johan van Houten and Miriam Frantzen, selected twenty enthusiastic participants out of 53 applications. The participants came from the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, Ukraine and Russia. In the end, however, a group of thirteen participants participated in the New Year’s event.  The group was accommodated at a very nice and central location, the Office for Refugee Support, in the Telingstraat, Utrecht. The event officially started on the 27th of December, 2011. On the first day the participants were mostly occupied with ice breaking games such as “try before you die” speed dating, krantenmeppertje (name game) and other fun TBYD games. They were also given free time and were accompanied by local AEGEE members who showed them the city. Because the event was called “Try Before You Die”, the showers were not, as one would expect, at the location, but a 15min. drive from the city center. This evening the whole group went to the “Poema” where there was a big international party. Later on in the week the participants got acquainted with the lovely city of Utrecht during a city tour and an exciting city rally. They also got acquainted with Dutch hospitality with the imitation of the Dutch TV-program “Nu we er toch zijn” whereby the participants had to ring doorbells and ask if they could stay and enjoy the hospitality of the Dutch people by being invited for a chat, drink or dinner at people’s homes.

At the European night the participants presented typical food and drinks from their countries and were partying all night long. Later that week the participants were introduced other “try before you die” games such as making sandwiches as dirty and nasty as possible which other groups had to eat. We also had games such as a contest in jumping/walking in big bags to the finish, egg throwing in a big circle, and twin and quartet soccer playing.

Another interesting part about this week was the discussion about the gay community in the Netherlands, and what the differences were between the acceptability of gay people and gay relationships in the Netherlands and in the countries where the participants came from. Later on that week we experienced the gay scene in Amsterdam where we visited some gay bars in small groups of participants. The participants also got the opportunity to show their cooking skills where they were presented with a bag of different products and had to improvise a meal out of the available products. After dinner, the groups prepared themselves for a night walk, a “dropping” as one would say in Dutch. The groups got in the car where they got blindfolded. They got some clues about where to go, and what to do and after some hours of walking and getting cold the lost participants were picked up and brought back for a hot shower and some glühwein.  On the 30^th of December, we all went to explore the city of Amsterdam where we had a city tour, and visited the Heinkenmuseum. After that we had dinner and went to explore Amsterdam’s gay and heterosexual nightlife.

The next day we had a busy schedule in front of us. After the participants were divided into couples, they had to try and hitchhike to Gouda. Everyone started to hitchhike at the official hitchhiking stop. After waiting for some cars and asking drivers if they were going into the direction of Gouda, the first couple managed to get a ride in less than half an hour.  Everyone arrived in Gouda safe and sound where they were awaited by an AEGEE guide who was ready to give a city tour. After this, it was time to go back to Utrecht by train to enjoy a special dinner where the tables were covered in aluminum foil and everybody was able to make a drawing of mayonnaise or ketchup.  A lot of fries and some typical Dutch snacks like “frikadel, kroket, and kaassoufle” were placed on the aluminium covered table. After everybody was ready, we all went to the van Lieflandlaan party to celebrate New Year’s eve. This was a big party with around 300 people. At 23:50 everybody went to the roof of the building and waited till the year ended where the crowds started the countdown to 2012. At 00:00 everyone screamed “Happy New Year!” and started to kiss everybody and celebrate the beginning of 2012. From this floor, you could see the amazing fireworks which were lid everywhere in the city. On the 1st of January everybody just slept for a couple of hours, recovering from the night before. However, we had to be gone before 11:00 for the New Year’s dive.

After bringing the swim clothes and towels everyone was brought to the  “Maarsseveense plassen” (lakes) to participate in the New Year’s dive. Having arrived, the group saw a new challenge; they should start the New Year a bit different where they all ran in the water at 12.00 with a group of 40 local people. This was the way to start the New Year.  After this freezing moment, everybody got some typical Dutch sausages and pea soup and could hit the showers. Around 18:00 everybody prepared themselves to go out for a farewell dinner. After having enjoyed their meals, the group went to club “Ekko” where there was a lounge party. After hanging and chilling, the whole group came back to the location, where they played some card games. On the 2nd of January it was time to say goodbye. That was the end of an amazing event full of new memories from nice people, activities and crazy anecdotes.

Written by Miriam Frantzen and Johan van Houten, AEGEE-Utrecht

Photos by Simon Bak and participants

The “Where Does Europe End” – project  (WDEE) has proved to be an AEGEE success story; there have been multiple events all over Europe throughout the last years. Participants have been exploring how the European youth perceive their continent; tried to find out into which direction Europe is heading (about enlargement for example); and also discussed the development of the European Union.

The final conference will be held in Utrecht from the 12th till the 18th of May 2012. The local organisers have been working hard for quite some time and their work is paying off – Youth in Action granted funding! 40 EU students will have the chance to stay in a nice hostel and take part in interesting workshops and listen to inspiring speakers. Documentaries will be shown, the living library will let you experience various topics, there will be debates challenging prejudices and stalemate opinions, an excursion to the Hague, a visit to the Dutch parliament, and -maybe the most important aspect- participants will have the chance to speak with policy makers from politics and influential NGO’s.
There are four topics that will be discussed: the enlargement of the European Union, the economic crisis, nationalism, and European borders.  There will be a group for each focus area and the participants will find out how European youth see this particular topic. The event offers you the chance to share your opinion with others, but also to see Europe through the eyes of someone else. How does someone from another country see the economic crisis and why is their view so different from yours?  What would you really like to say to policy makers?

The main coordinator of the event, Casper Wolf, is an AEGEE veteran, and is happy to have the wonderful opportunity to finish his AEGEE career with an interesting conference. He already worked in the local board for one year (full-time) and had left the WDEE one year ago. Under the influence of a beer, and maybe another beer, he could not resist: He and the dedicated ladies in his team want to give it their all to make this conference a success for the network. Thanks to the active support and expertise of the WDEE Team, this conference promises to offer the very best for its participants. Applications will open in February, so keep a watchful eye on the events calendar, come to Utrecht and enjoy the beautiful canals (and some warm stroopwafels at the market).

Written by Yvonne Antonovic, AEGEE-Utrecht