Every month, many antennae around the Network organise activities that are related to our Action Agenda and Strategic Plan. Some of these locals become ACTive Locals of the Month, but often there is more than one outstanding activity taking place. One of these activities is the project “If I were in your shoes” by AEGEE-Kyïv and AEGEE-Berlin, which took place last October (Kyïv) and December (Berlin) and was related to the Youth Mobility Focus Area. We spoke to Iryna Sheremeta, President of AEGEE-Kyïv and the main coordinator of the Kyïv part of the project, to find out more!

ACT: Can you tell us a little bit more about your programme and participants?
Irina: The program was connected to the main topic of the project “Participatory Democracy”. The idea was to show young and motivated people how they can participate now and be useful for society. Participants were from different cities in Ukraine and Germany, 18-25 years old, and not only AEGEEans. We mixed activities, because we wanted to balance theory and practice as well as show our participants the city. We met with representatives of different initiatives, organised workshops connected to the topic and walked around the city. The same strategy was used in Berlin. We talked about populism, German local initiatives, for example the bicycle movement. Moreover, we visited some of them and tried the practice of mediation with children, helped in a refugee camp and in a local bicycle association.

How and when did the idea to organise this project come to your mind?
The idea to organise a serious project appeared in the heads of our board members from the very beginning of our term. It was a logical decision after a successful year of the previous board, which organised Autumn Agora Kyïv 2015 and a series of events connected to democracy. The particular idea of this project appeared during our New Years event during a discussion about our focus and how we could link ourselves to the Focus Areas.

 
Which steps did you take to realise your idea?
We did not want to make a project following some grants requirements, but we wanted to find a grant matching our idea for it. We followed the Facebook page of the German embassy in Ukraine and saw an open call there. Then, we contacted AEGEEans from AEGEE-Berlin and developed a common vision. Both locals from Ukraine and Germany were involved, because the project Meet Up is a Ukrainian-German cooperation. Then, the waiting period started and we got an answer from the grant three months later. They asked to specify the topic and to add more group work. Actually, the confirmation from the grant was the first step to realise our idea.

 
How exactly did you apply for the grant?
The application for the grant was quite extensive. It consisted of a general vision of the project, a preliminary programme, a preliminary budget, documents, which proved that we are representatives of NGOs (statutes, documents signed by Presidents, etc). We needed to fill an electronic application form and also send a paper version by mail.

 
What was the outcome of your project?
With this project, we wanted to motivate people to act and to be active in their own country. We wanted to show them that there are many possibilities to do that and many opportunities to develop your own personality. We made a video briefly explaining the main idea of the project and shared it on our pages in social networks. Also, the main task was to create ideas for policies which will be sent to the Kyïv City Council.

 
Did you have any troubles to create and realise your idea? How did you solve them?
I do not know if we can call these things troubles, but one girl from Berlin lost her purse and a boy from Cologne lost his camera. Also one participant  from Berlin had troubles on the border and we needed to send her the invitation on the day of arrival. One more participant missed the flight and did not come at all. But basically everything went well and the atmosphere was amazing and friendly.

Can you tell us a bit more about your local?
AEGEE-Kyïv is 21 years old, very active and motivated. During our history we organised two Agoras, and we regularly organise Summer Universities (SU) and local events. We had several Comité Directeur (CD) representatives in the history of our antenna and we are really proud of that.

 
Describe your local in five words.
Active, motivated, friendly, open-hearted, hospitable.

P.S. More information can be found here.
Written by Action Agenda Coordination Committee and Youth Mobility Working Group

This Agora we won’t only elect the new Comité Directeur and members of different Commissions, but we will also vote on the new Action Agenda. If you are asking yourself: “What agenda?”, this article is for you, but also those who already know what the Action Agenda is, are welcome to check out what the new one will look like.

To begin at the beginning, not of the founding of the earth but of the planning in AEGEE, our association is built upon a vision, mission and means, defining who we are, what we do and what we want the future to look like. Based on that, every three years a Strategic Plan, defining Focus Areas that we want AEGEE to focus on, is created at the Planning Meeting (stay tuned for the next one taking place this autumn).

To make sure we can actually contribute to these Focus Areas, every year at the European Planning Meeting (EPM) an Action Agenda is created, which gives concrete objectives that our locals and European bodies have to achieve. Shortly said, you can consider the Strategic Plan as AEGEE’s long term vision, and the Action Agenda as the association’s homework to contribute to the vision. If you want to know more about these two documents, take a look at the EPM booklet starting on page 16.

In Bergamo, you will be voting on the Action Agenda that will start on the 1^st of August 2016 and last until the 31^st of July 2017. As you just read, it was created by participants of the European Planning Meeting, which took place in Leiden this year. After 1,5 day of a thematic conference on migration, members of locals all over the Network took a closer look at the Focus Areas we have and created a draft of new goals to achieve in the fields of Spreading Europtimism, Youth Mobility, Youth Employment and Civic Education.

Based on this draft and the feedback given on the forum, the Comité Directeur created a final version of the Action Agenda that will be presented at the upcoming Agora. Curious what you will be presented? You can find the new objectives here. In case you have any questions or suggestions to improve them, feel free to share them on the forum or come on stage after the presentation of the next Action Agenda!

Written by Svenja van der Tol, Secretary General of AEGEE-Europe 2015-2016

Plenty of AEGEE members have heard about Erasmus+ at some point. However, not many of us have actually gone through the time-consuming application process. The long application form and the large amount of questions and items you need to think about sound like an unreachable objective for many locals and European bodies of AEGEE. And yes – it is hard, it takes a lot of time, but by no means it is impossible! In this article, we will decode Erasmus+ and make it easy. After all, having quite some financial support for your projects is always an optimal thing, isn’t it?

What does the Erasmus+ fund?

• Key Action 1 deals with mobility for young people and youth workers;
• Key Action 2 deals with cooperation for innovation and exchange of good practices – meaning cooperation among youth organisations to run joint projects;
• Key Action 3 is about policy development and support for reforms on youth policy (for instance, the Structured Dialogue).

This article will focus especially on Key Action 1 initiatives, because it is the one that gives more space for opportunities for AEGEE locals, and it is the one that receives the biggest percentage of Erasmus+ funds (long story short, ‘easier’ to get).

The Key Action 1 of Erasmus+ focuses on the development of the individual, meaning YOU as a student/young person. In other words, you attend a training course where you gain a certain set of skills and competences. In this way, it contributes to your personal development and, no less important, to understand other cultures and countries participating in the training course better.

There are three main activities that you can organise under Key Action 1:

• Youth exchanges: an opportunity for students aged 13 to 30 to meet up and address a chosen topic (arts, education, audiovisuals, sports, you name it!), where different methods are used, such as workshops, simulation games and other exercises – all of them prepared beforehand.
• European Voluntary Service (EVS): namely, the opportunity to volunteer for up to one year at an organisation abroad, in order to contribute to its daily work and bring a benefit to the local community. There are many types of organisations and topics which you can participate in for your EVS, ranging from environment, to culture, people with disabilities, media, development, and many more!
• Training and networking for youth workers: these include anything related to your professional development – training courses, seminars, debates, case study trips. If you are interested in boosting your skills, this is the place to be!

You might be thinking: “I want to participate in one of these activities!”…

Picture from l’Auberge Espagnole, the film that depicted the Erasmus lifestyle for the first time.

Great news: it is easier and more accessible than you might think! The most important thing that you need is to get your AEGEE antenna registered in the Erasmus+ database and get the Partner Identification Code (PIC), you can find more information about it in the Members Portal.

Then, you just need to find a training course of your interest! There are a handful of Facebook groups where youth organisations from all over Europe look for partners or participants for their youth exchanges. However, *the* source for training activities is SALTO-YOUTH’s European Training Calendar. Browse all the options that you will find in there, send your mandate (which will confirm that you agree to be a partner of the project), and you are just one click away from starting a journey of a lifetime!

…or you might be thinking: “how about applying with my own project?”

You have an idea in mind for a great project? You need resources? What better idea than to get funding from Erasmus+? The first thing you would need is a theme for your project. In this sense, Erasmus+ funds a wide range of topics, ranging from active citizenship, intercultural learning and preventing discrimination, employability and entrepreneurship, promotion of diversity, trainings, non-formal education, all topics that we, AEGEEans, work with on a daily basis!

Moreover, one of the highlights and priorities of the year 2016 for the European Commission concerns the current refugee crisis. Because of it, projects that promote intercultural and inter-religious dialogue, respect for human rights, and that involve refugees and asylum seekers in some way will be given a “plus”.

Once you have an idea, it is the time to design your master plan and make it happen! First of all, you have to know that your Erasmus+ will not only be “an event” as such, but a project as a whole. Erasmus+ works in a way that you submit a project, and that this project can have one or more activities (what we understand as events/exchanges/training courses as such). Therefore, each project needs to follow different basic stages: planning (including previous preparation in terms of logistics and content, how you will communicate with participants etc.), execution, and closure (which includes the impact, evaluation and PR/communication of the project). And you need to carefully plan all of the stages.

Therefore, when planning it, you need to ask yourself: what are the aim and the objectives that I want to achieve with this exchange/training/conference? Which impact is it going to have? What are all the steps that I need to take in order to make my project happen? How will I plan the PR campaign for my project? How will I select the participants? Some of the questions in the long Erasmus+ application form are quite basic for someone who has a lot of experience organising events, but it is important for you to follow the different quality assurance steps, and use the questions as a ‘check-list’ of things you need to think about when putting your project into practice.

Something that you should really put an emphasis on, and that the National Agencies value, is how you plan to follow-up and disseminate (namely, the PR and communication of the event in social media, in booklets, etc) your project so it has a big impact. Another big “plus” for your application has to do with inclusion: how will you ensure gender balance? Are you planning to include young people with fewer opportunities? Last but not least, you should also consider which tools you plan to use in order to recognise the skills that the participants will gain from your project. There are many certifications available, and you should strongly consider using the YouthPass, a commonly-used European tool to certify these skills.

Partner up!

In a project funded by Erasmus+, you will not be alone! As we explained before, your AEGEE antenna can become a partner in an Erasmus+ project, get involved in it and send participants, right? It also happens the other way around: you need partners to make your own project happen!

The first thing to consider is that you need to partner up with organisations that are similar to yours, and that are somehow related to the topic of your project. For instance, for a project related to social inclusion, you would not really ask an organisation of aerospace engineering students, would you? Therefore, you need to clearly define the aim of your project, and which types of organisations you can partner with. Of course, you can involve and be partners with other AEGEE locals – however, I would strongly encourage you to also find partners that are not AEGEE locals! This will definitely give you a “plus” in the eyes of the National Agency.

There are several ways to find partners for Erasmus+. Search for “Erasmus+ partner” on Facebook, and you will find a handful of Facebook groups where you can promote your project and find others who also need partners. Most importantly, you need to think how to involve these partners: will they be taking care and supporting you with the content? Will they take part in the participants’ selection? How (and how often) will you communicate with them?

That must have been a lot of information for you! Explaining Erasmus+ shortly is not an easy task. Because of this, the Comité Directeur is always available to help and answer all your questions. So, if you have any other questions, do not hesitate to approach me at communications@aegee.org! Another great source of information is the UK National Agency of Erasmus+, or check the information of your National Agency in your own language.

Written by Anna Gumbau, Communications Director of AEGEE-Europe 2015-2016

On the weekend of the 23rd and 24th of January, Youth Mobility Working Group had a meeting in Brussels. They discussed their future activities and planned the next steps for the second half of their term, but most importantly, they bonded! The AEGEEan asked them what they have done so far and what they are preparing for the upcoming semester. Find out more below…

The AEGEEan: Who is in the team? What are their tasks?
Youth Mobility Working Group: The members of our team are directly connected to the objectives of our Focus Area, so we have: Natalia Ivleva (AEGEE-Voronezh), responsible for Objective 1 – Establishing and managing a group of visa supporters; Suzan Dilara Tokac (AEGEE-Eskişehir), responsible for Objective 2 – Training members on youth mobility programs and grant opportunities; Anastasiia Dzhulai (AEGEE-Kyïv), responsible for Objective 3 – Establishing long-term discount agreements with mobility service providers; and Lia Georgieva (AEGEE-Berlin) as the Public Relations responsible of our Working Group. The team is coordinated by Antonis Triantafyllakis and our appointed CD member is Maryana Semenyak.

What is each taskforce’s aim? Are there still open positions?
There is a taskforce required in order to fulfil each of our three objectives. In brief, the taskforce members will take care of researching visa issues and locals’ Erasmus+ applications, support us in writing guidelines for visa applications and applying for funds, provide info on national and international regulations and agreements, fundraise for travel discounts and more, all of which you can see in detail in our open calls here.
And, yes, the open calls will remain open for as long as taskforce members are needed, so… APPLY!
By the way, we’re also looking for a Policy Officer! So, if any AEGEEan feel they can present the opinion of the network on youth mobility with their awesome writing skills, here is where to look.

What have you done so far?
We’ve had a couple of open google hangouts on visa issues and Erasmus+, a cool workshop on Erasmus+ in NWM Kraków, an open session in NWM Berlin and very nice discussions during the workshop in Agora Kyïv. We have also started collaborating with various European bodies in AEGEE, gave the first tasks to our task force members (we need more people!) and, of course, have created a website and an active facebook page, but I think the future lies ahead of us!

What are your future plans? Any upcoming activities in the near future?
Too many to mention in just a few lines, but we are planning on collaborating with embassies as well as preparing detailed and easy-to-follow guidelines and infographics for visa and Erasmus+ applications, suggestions for the upcoming Action Agenda, a training course on Erasmus+, resources for easy travelling within Europe and beyond and big plans for collaborating with both European bodies of AEGEE and active AEGEEans! Of course we need more taskforce members to support us in the process, but be prepared to see a lot more of us in the second half of our term. See you at the EPM, Spring NWMs, Agora Bergamo and, generally, see you somewhere in Europe!

You just had a meeting in Brussels. Who was there? What did you discuss?
The whole team was there! That was the meeting where we basically developed a concrete, detailed plan in order to fulfil our objectives for the second half of our term, as described in the current Action Agenda, as well as our contributions to the next Action Agenda. Perhaps more importantly though, this meeting helped us get much closer to each other and develop this bond that is not only essential to keep the motivation in voluntary work such as ours, but also, as we’re developing strong international friendships, it is also a real life practice of what we aim for in AEGEE, our common vision for a borderless Europe!

Anything to add?
Many people might think that the refugee crisis, however important, is still something outside of us, where we should of course do our best to help, but it is not really affecting the inter-European relationships themselves. But take a look at borders being raised again in Europe, both physically, in the form of fences, and mentally, in the form of the Schengen zone being suspended, border controls being re-instated and visa requirements put in place of visa-free regimes, like Russia and Turkey and you may perceive that AEGEE’s vision of a borderless Europe might be at stake… Come to our workshop at the EPM and we can have a fruitful discussion about that.

Written by Lia Tuska, AEGEE-Kastoria/Sofia

Have you ever thought to make a survey about people who study abroad? The Lifestyle in Mobility project partners did. We spoke with Svenja van der Tol, 23 years old and the Secretary General of AEGEE-Europe, who explains us something about her project involving also Erasmus students denominated “Lifestyle in Mobility”.

Lifestyle in Mobility is a collaborative research project of the Catholic University of Milan, AEGEE-Europe and Cardiff University. The aim of the project is to investigate how study abroad students’ (for example with Erasmus) lifestyle and health behaviours change during their period abroad and once returned to their home countries. When we say “lifestyle and health behaviours”, we mean things like eating behaviour, physical exercise, alcohol consumption, etc. For this project, students are asked to fill in three surveys: one before they go abroad, one while they are abroad and one after they came back. In the past months, AEGEE-Europe and the two universities have shared the survey with students before they were going abroad, with the help of AEGEE locals. In the upcoming month, these students will get the second survey and make a chance at cool prices like Interrail passes and Amazon giftcards. Next to that, it is the turn of another round of finding students who will go abroad in the second semester, so all students going abroad this academic year (2015-2016) will be reached out to.

Every year hundreds of thousands of study abroad students travel to countries other than their own to pursue tertiary studies. During the academic year 2012-2013 nearly 270000 students from 33 European countries participated in the Erasmus programme (now Erasmus +) spending up to 10 months in countries across Europe. The typical Study Abroad Student is a cosmopolitan, well-educated young person with lots of interests related to cultural exchange, international education and life achievement. In spite of Study Abroad Students being a fast growing population of young people that more than doubled in the last ten years, little is known about their lifestyle during their period abroad.

When Svenja asked at Autumn Agora Kyïv who in the room had been abroad, she saw a lot of hands raised. Many AEGEEans have studied abroad, are studying abroad or planning to do so. “Studying abroad and how it affects your lifestyle is therefore a relevant topic to our members”, says Svenja, “and with the results of this project we can visualize the effects of studying abroad on health and lifestyle, and hopefully give recommendations to ensure the health of students abroad. Besides that, since we have locals all over Europe, we can easily find students all over Europe, which is important for the research.”

AEGEE-Europe’s task in the project is to find the participants to fill in the survey. To do that, it has asked locals to spread the survey with study abroad students in their city. At the end of the project, AEGEE-Europe will organize a conference in Brussels to share the results of this project. Asking Svenja for the results of this project up to now, she replies: “Since the first round of the project already took place, we have the results of these participants, but the results we are aiming for are those that give a broader picture, including the data while abroad and after returning home.” The majority of people that filled in the survey is going abroad with Erasmus, but the research project is open to students that are studying abroad with all programs too.

Written by Matteo Lai, AEGEE-Cagliari

AEGEE has been one of the first Pan-European associations that supported Youth Mobility in order to empower students and young people in Europe to take an active role in society. ”After the attacks in Paris, Europe increased the level of controls, mostly on the borders,” says Afredo Sellitti, Policy Officer on Youth Mobility, which might cause some problems with travelling. However, work and residence permits were not affected”.

One of the main characteristics of AEGEE people is that they travel a lot; sometimes they just hit the road without planning. Now they will have to plan their trips better as the additional vigilance of the European governments might hide unexpected obstacles.

Walking the streets of Paris in the evening, you could feel the atmosphere of harmony and love, well described in the works of Hemingway or captured in romantic Hollywood movies. Now, some people might even have problems with travelling to Paris and if they arrive, they will be disappointed by the ‘Geist’ of terrorism.

According to Alfredo, the additional border controls should not have significant impact on AEGEE and its projects unless the Schengen Area gets suspended, which will bring back the passport and visa procedures. ”However, this is a remote scenario and highly unlikely to happen,” says Alfredo.

Most of the countries adopted tighter security measures and Slovakia was no exception. According to Prime Minister Robert Fico, who is known in Europe for refusing migration quota, uncontrolled migration is an unprecedented risk for the country. Indeed, in most cases, they are just pro-form that disturbs the daily routine of foreigners living in Slovakia.  A young man from Iran interviewed by a newspaper said he was checked three times a day. People coming from Ukraine reported long visa procedures with plenty of paper work.

“The security of Slovakia’s citizens must be a top priority before any other rights”, said the prime minister. However, usually when some rights are given to one group of people, the rights of another people might be in danger. Many people would like to use the freedom to travel in order to gain new experience and skills. However, sometimes they find out at the station that trains are not in service due to security threats, which happened a few months ago in Budapest.

Do not say the word ‘bomb’ at the airport

Some measures can put people into stressful situations. Press release from Bratislava airport advised the passengers not to say words like “bomb” aloud around the terminal building as it might raise suspicion, even emergency. Lucia from AEGEE-Bratislava was flying from Bratislava to Brussels on the 15th of November and almost missed her flight because the traditional fast-track security check was replaced by tight control.  Also, trains from Germany to Belgium and France had several hours of delays, she confirmed, which caused delays in her work schedule.

The security was tightened after the attacks in Paris on Friday, 13th of November that killed 130 people. “Residents in Paris were shocked, but after about three days, everything got back to normal”, says Daria from AEGEE-Kyïv, who left Paris shortly before the attacks.  Her friends had a trip to Paris planned one week after the attacks and they went regardless of the warnings.  It proves that AEGEEans are more daring and tolerant than ordinary people. Lucia said that there is no point in worrying: “Either the security forces will act in time or we should at least hope that it won’t hit me or my relatives”.

Maybe it is a little bit careless approach, but the fact is that the only terrorist convicted in Slovakia was a man who exploded a bomb in front of a McDonalds in Košice, eastern Slovakia, a few years ago. On the other hand, we should look further than our fence. In other countries, the situation is a little bit different. Places like Paris and Brussels are more ‘in the limelight’. Therefore, we all should contribute to the collective security.

Catharsis of Europe

The  situation in Europe is different from ten years ago. It is becoming a continent of ideologies and people who seek opportunities to encourage the public in order to reach their goals. It is the issue of terrorist propaganda spreading over the internet that brings danger, not migration.

According to French Ministry of Immigration (2010), the five countries, UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany cater for 80% of migration flow to Europe and recently Germany welcomed the millionth migrant this year. The main reasons behind migration are economic, family reunion and study. This trend is expected to continue, which can have negative impact on Europe’s economy and culture. Therefore, some governments agreed on cuts.

”According to the recent happenings, people of Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Egypt might face the biggest problems with travelling to Europe as these countries lie close to the southern European borders,” said Alfredo.

Under the new rules that were adopted in response to the attacks in Paris, courts will be able to order detention of a terrorist suspect and prolong the detention period. However, the terrorist tactics do not focus on attacking individuals but spreading fear and the feeling of hopelessness in the whole society. Therefore, the situation calls for redefinition of security in Europe, which might affect our comfort, especially with travelling and work permits.

A group of international students in Bratislava said that they did not experience any difficulties when getting to Slovakia. However, prior to arrival, they had to go through visa application process, and the security check at the airport was a bit longer.  Little delay is a cheap price if we look at what is at stake. Nevertheless, we should respect the rules and hope that the disturbing responsibility of customs procedures and identity checks will come to an end.

Written by Erik Redli, AEGEE-Bratislava

AEGEE-Europe has always fought for a border-less Europe, being also among the first Pan-European associations who promotes Youth Mobility with the aim to encourage students and young people to be active in their society. However, recent changes in the Visa Directive made by the European Council, in which the Directive should be binding only for students and researchers, without the pupils, trainees, volunteers and youth workers have made it harder for AEGEE-Europe to reach its goal of free movement, but not impossible. We talked with Svetlana Danchenko, AEGEE-Ösnabruck, one of the home-based CD assistants to tell us more about the Visa action plan. We also talked a bit with Holger Schmitt, Network Director of AEGEE-Europe, to help us understand the situation better. 

The AEGEEan: To begin with, how would you describe the current situation of the Visa policy?  

Svetlana: Although Schengen opened borders for a lot of Europeans, Visas in Europe still exists between a lot of countries. Therefore a lot of AEGEE members especially from Eastern Europe as well as AEGEEans going to some Eastern European countries face a lot of problems during the Visa application process including while applying for Visas for AEGEE purposes as recent survey has shown. Therefore, we discussed to focus our efforts on those most relevant countries Ukraine, Russia and Turkey wanting to enter the Schengen area. At AgorAsturias we discussed further steps and what the focus of AEGEE should be to provide further action to facilitate Visa for our members from those countries.

Considering the fact that the Visa Freedom Working Group was abolished during the Autumn Agora Cagliari in 2014, did you still manage to give support to those members who needed a Visa?

Svetlana: Usually, the individual support to those members who need a Visa is done by incoming or Visa-responsible from incoming antenna. One of the primary goals now is to create the updated Visa Invitation Letters including the ones which could be used for receiving multiple entry Visa and share the experiences of obtaining such Visas with antennae including incoming Visa responsible and interested members.

Do you plan to revive the Visa Freedom Working Group, how and why?  

Svetlana: Although during Agora Cagliari the Visa Working Group was abolished due to not fulfilling the criteria, the discussions connected with its abolition as well as the extremely intensive voting session during the Agora showed that Visa issues however, are still extremely relevant for AEGEE members. Due to reform of Working Groups accepted by AgorAsturias the current idea is to revive to Visa working direction as part of the Youth Mobility working group which is one of the AEGEE focuses according to the strategy until 2017.

Which are the recent changes brought to the Visa facilitation?

Svetlana: Since CD Assistants responsible for updating Visa guidelines were chosen (in December 2014 after abolition of Visa Working Group at Agora Cagliari), our work was focused on understanding the needs of AEGEE members concerning Visa issues, setting priorities, updating the existing Visa guidelines and revising information left after Visa Working Group and attracting attention to Visa issues. During AgorAsturias we reached a lot of new people interested in Visa issues who highly contributed by bringing new ideas. Currently, together with Holger Schmitt, three CD Visa Assistants and interested people, together a team of 9, we are actively working on the future of AEGEE Visa facilitation policies.

Are there any further plans to improve the Visa facilitation?  

Svetlana: The future short term plans include updating Visa invitation letters as well as creating multiple Visa invitation letter as well as better awareness about Visa issues. The long-term plans include creating lobbying responsibles in capital cities antennae and increase in Visa facilitation lobbying on the AEGEE Europe level. Also we want to use the new Mobility Working Group to create a further platform to share the best practices between Visa responsibles and between experienced AEGEE members.

What do you think is the current position of AEGEE-Europe regarding the Visa facilitation, taking into account the proposal of the European Council in February to revise the Visa Directive and exclude the volunteers from it? Are there any future actions to be taken to solve this? 

Holger: AEGEE-Europe has always been advocating for the right of free movement in Europe. We believe in a unified, diverse and border-less Europe and therefore we are following closely the so-called ’Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purposes of research, studies, pupil exchange, remunerated and un-remunerated training, voluntary service and au pairing’. The Council Proposal from January 2015 is quite disappointing for AEGEE since it changes the scope of the directive to not include volunteers, pupil’s exchange and au-pairing in the Directive and also not providing further facilitation concerning the question of Visa fees. Since volunteers are also one of the focus groups of AEGEE we started a Visa Advocacy Campaign in January sending letters to all Permanent Representations in Brussels as well as translated versions to most EU Ministries of Home Affairs or Justice (depending which Ministry) is in charge to decide on the question in the Council of European Union. We had several responses from the Ministries from Germany, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Romania, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Furthermore we had meetings with representatives from Luxembourg and Slovakia in Brussels to discuss the scope of the Directive. It seems that pupils’ exchanges will be in the end adopted in the Directive, but the questions of volunteers remains disputed among different Member States and in the negotiations of the EU Parliament. The issue for most countries is that the status of volunteer is not clearly defined on a European level and has different regulations in different countries, which is why it is unlikely to reach a consensus about them. Also, the question of abolition of Visa fees remains difficult since most Ministries of the Interior see Visa to be essential for the interior security and see the need of fees to cover the cost of the bureaucratic processes. The article on this issue written by Policy Officer on Youth Mobility, Alfredo Sellitti, you could also find in AEGEEan Magazine from 4th February.

From our point of view the costs could be lowered or abolished by less bureaucracy and more efficient processes, but this is going against the interests of the member states for more security. We presented on all occasions the results of several studies proving the positive impact of increased mobility for the local economy and the level of education and participation of citizens. However the security question remains in the centre of concerns of the Interior Ministers who are negotiating the Directive with the Parliament. At this point the negotiations will continue until 2016 under the EU presidency of Netherlands and Luxembourg, so AEGEE needs to further strengthen the advocacy ambitions in the next year to raise awareness to our position about volunteers and Visa Fees. It will be important to further target Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany which play a crucial role in the negotiations. Another task for us is to further promote the Erasmus and EVS programme in third countries such to provide better chances to get Visa for studies and research in the Schengen countries.

It will be up to the new Mobility Working Group and to the next CD together with the newly formed Mobility Network of the European Youth Forum to continue our efforts to reach the best possible result for Visa facilitation through the Directive.

Written by Gabriela Geană, AEGEE-București

A new month comes with a new ACTive Local of the Month. This month, the Dutch local AEGEE-Utrecht was elected for covering all of the Focus Areas of the Strategic Plan within one month organising four different activities. We spoke to the President of the local, Folckert van der Molen, to find out more about this local and their Action Agenda involvement!  

First of all, can you tell us a bit more about your local?
AEGEE-Utrecht was founded in 1987 by a group of local law students. Now we have grown to be one of the largest locals in the network, with nearly 300 members. It is headed by a full-time board of five people. In total there are about 20 committees with a total of 125 members in active positions. This allows for a full calendar of activities, with an average of 3 activities per week.

Which activities related to the Action Agenda/Strategic Plan did you organise?
We organised a workshop on professional profiling, an international night, a vegetarian dinner and an outgoing exchange with AEGEE-Budapest. Our workshop, contributing to the Focus Area of Youth Employment, aimed to teach participants how to profile themselves in the labour market. A lot of present people later mentioned they found it very inspirational and helpful.

Our International Night, contributing to the Focus Area of Spreading Europtimism, was organised in cooperation with other internationally oriented student associations in Utrecht and gave us the chance to bring together international and local students for a memorable night.

Our vegetarian dinner, contributing to the Focus Area of Civic Education, contributed to the 40 days without meat action organised by AEGEE-Leuven. One of our committees already organises dinners for our members once every month around a theme. This time they decided to go with a Greek and vegetarian theme. Although the Greek cuisine is known for their delicious meat dishes, they managed to create some outstanding vegetarian Greek dishes.

Last but not least, our exchange, contributing to the Focus Area of Youth Mobility, was organised in cooperation with our twin antenna AEGEE-Budapest. As part of our twin antenna agreement, we hold at least one exchange per year. This time, we also invited AEGEE-Barcelona to join us for five days of sightseeing, fun and new and old friendships.

Why did you decide to organise these activities?
As one of the larger locals, we feel we should strive to maximize that potential. That’s why for every idea for an activity, we ask ourselves a simple question: is this a true AEGEE activity? That means, how do we contribute to the goals we set out to achieve? For all these activities we think we managed to give the real AEGEE spirit to the participants and certainly bring Europe a little closer to home!

What were the results of your activities?
Actually all activities had a great number of participants. The International Night for example attracted almost 500 people. For the exchange we even had to disappoint some people for whom there was no more room. Even the workshop had a pretty good attendance, while we have in the past found it difficult to get a lot of people for that kind of activity.

Do you have any other activities related to the Action Agenda planned?
Our plans mainly focus on getting our members more active in Europe and not only in Utrecht. While not directly related to a specific focus area, this should have a positive impact. That said, we do have a couple of activities planned. For example, a hitchhiking competition in cooperation with other locals, or a trip to The Hague, to visit the Humanity House where you can experience life as a refugee. Also, we are one of the organising locals for the Democracy in Practice training courses, which of course is a big contribution to the Civic Education focus area. There are more examples, but let’s not name them all here!

Do you have any other big plans for the upcoming year?

Always! We are planning to throw the best gala we have ever seen, in the most amazing location available in Utrecht. Shortly after that we will celebrate our birthday and have a lot more activities that together we call our theme month. This year the theme is stories, which gives a lot of room for great activities. In the summer we will organise our Summer University “Meet your new partners in crime”, in cooperation with AEGEE-Delft and AEGEE-Amsterdam. And after that the focus will be on recruitment and introduction, because before the start of the next academic year we hope to find about 100 new members for AEGEE-Utrecht.

Why should other locals organise activities related to the Action Agenda?
Because any organisation can throw social nights or whatever, but as AEGEE we can do much more than that. Our whole raison d’être is to make Europe more connected and to be the voice of young people. The AEGEE network provides amazing opportunities to make an impact. It would be a waste not to take advantage of that!

Do you have any tips for organising thematic activities?
Involve as many people as possible! It is tempting to do everything by yourself or even with just the board members, since a lot of times it’s even more efficient that way. A big part of the impact of organising these kind of activities however is in giving people the experience to organise and connect themselves to the European Project. Get some inexperienced members on the team or find partnerships with other associations. The joy of seeing other people grow is just as great as putting all the pieces together yourself.

Which objective of the new Action Agenda do you look forward to working with the most?
Actually I am pretty happy about all of them. As we have many active committees, it is up to them to decide what they think is interesting or important. We don’t need to focus on just one of the aims. AEGEE belongs to all members and I am looking forward to seeing what each of them comes up with on their own. As President of AEGEE-Utrecht I am looking forward most of all to facilitating all the crazy ideas they bring to us and supporting them in making them a reality.

Written by Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.