{"id":35127,"date":"2016-05-09T14:49:57","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T12:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/?p=35127"},"modified":"2016-05-09T15:17:51","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T13:17:51","slug":"alienor-pirlet-for-civic-education-working-group-coordinator-aegee-needs-civic-education-as-a-focus-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/2016\/05\/09\/alienor-pirlet-for-civic-education-working-group-coordinator-aegee-needs-civic-education-as-a-focus-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Ali\u00e9nor Pirlet for Civic Education Working Group Coordinator: “AEGEE Needs Civic Education As a Focus Area”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ali\u00e9nor from AEGEE-Bruxelles\/Brussels is\u00a0part of\u00a0the ECI task force and CEWG (Civic Education Working Group) and has been in her local board as a secretary, even after she moved to Groningen in the Netherlands. Obviously able to juggle various positions on local and European level, she is now running for the position of CEWG Coordinator. Despite being not that experienced, she is highly motivated to take this next step. Let’s meet this multi-tasker!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0The AEGEEan: Hi Ali\u00e9nor, tell us something about you<\/strong>!\u00a0\"profile<\/p>\n

Ali\u00e9nor:\u00a0<\/strong>As a scout, I have been \u2018qualified\u2019 under the following sentence: Pump it up \u2013 Think, Live, Love. In other words: a bit of idealism, a lot of craziness and amazement, but mostly love and dedication are what guide my daily life. I\u2019m a 22-year-old Belgian student in Political Science who loves to travel, is always eager to make new discoveries and cherishes her family and friends. It is no secret, I can also be incredibly clumsy and daredevil \u2013 but that\u2019s part of the charm, right? I\u2019m always on board for new wild adventures and enjoy entertaining kids, as I regularly did as a scout leader or with my nieces and nephew. I\u2019m usually a peaceful person, but I might be a bit competitive on the football field or get a little bit away when debating on societal issues! As much as I like to think I\u2019m a good listener, I can also be a real chatterbox so unless you want to keep me talking all night long, avoid starting a discussion with me about Friends, How I Met Your Mother, John Oliver, Ethics, Ecology, Europe, Belgian\u2019s political system or Civic Education.<\/p>\n

Why did you decide to run for the position of Civic Education Working Group Coordinator?<\/strong><\/p>\n

To me, AEGEE has always been more than a way of travelling cheaply and partying. Not only do we have crazy fun, but we also accomplish a lot, both at local and European level. Our network has great potential and success in shaping active, caring, tolerant and powerful young Europeans. It didn\u2019t take long for me to get hooked to AEGEE and know I would want to get active on its European level as well. Nevertheless, I remember thinking in Kyiv \u201cOh man, I wouldn\u2019t want to be on the stage like all those poor people defending what they\u2019ve been doing for the past six\u00a0months and having to answer all those harsh questions!\u201d. But in Leiden I got so interested in the ambitious CEWG that, despite what I had thought earlier, I\u2019ve joined it a month later. Deciding to run for the position of coordinator was quite a challenging but logical step for me. Indeed, had there been an experienced candidate for the position during the first call, I wouldn\u2019t have had the need to consider running for the position. But once I heard no one had applied, I knew it was not a question of experimentation anymore, but more of motivation. Being deeply convinced AEGEE needs civic education as a focus area, I would not want to see our network lose it, and most of all miss the opportunity to bring it even further. Running for coordinator is for me the best way to make sure we keep up with what has been achieved so far, and don\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n

What are your views on what a perfect \u2018educated citizen\u2019 actually is?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"OnA citizen, by definition, enjoys civic and political rights of a state. An educated citizen should be aware that those rights are directly linked to civic and political responsibilities necessary for a sustainable \u2018community life\u2019, and should therefore meet those.\u00a0 To my mind, there is no perfect \u2018educated citizen\u2019; one can always improve his knowledge and behaviour. But what is certain is that in order to progress towards perfection, an educated citizen should keep up with playing an active role within her\/his community, understanding how the world works, taking part in discussions about it, making informed decisions, standing up for what s\/he believes in and being aware, responsible, respectful and tolerant.<\/p>\n

What are your plans for the following year of the Civic Education Working Group?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I will build the best team ever (or at least as ambitious and dedicated as the current one)! Then everything will depend on the new Action Agenda. But one thing I can already assure is that the CEWG and the ECI task force will continue to do their best to make sure our ECI reaches the one\u00a0million signatures and ends up accepted by the Commission! For the rest, as usual, the working group will maintain close and sustainable collaborations with the network to help AEGEEans becoming even more educated citizens!<\/p>\n

On a practical side, do you think you will have enough time to do everything?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is undeniably a great challenge, but I believe that after having gathered together a team of dedicated persons, I will be able to delegate the majority of our tasks and responsibilities to each member of the working group. When things are organised, it\u2019s always easier to get them down quickly and efficiently. Moreover, being already a member of the CEWG, I have a pretty good idea of the amount of time it will necessiate, so yes I know I will have enough time. Plus, I\u2019m not one to fail to honour one\u2019s commitments.<\/p>\n

What experience or skills do you have that make you the right one for this job?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

As already explained in my application, my years as a scout leader and my time abroad have taught me a lot. In my opinion, the most important skills the coordinator of a working\"Spring\u00a0group must have are organisational and communication ones, which I believe I have gained over the years. I know how to be pragmatic, resourceful, social and good at organising or improvising activities. I might not always be the fastest, but I\u2019m always assiduous at what I do and never miss a deadline.<\/p>\n

Which activities of the current CEWG do you want to\u00a0continue and develop next year?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

All of them, they\u2019re genius! As I said, our activities will of course depend on the new objectives for next year. However, I don\u2019t see why we would not want to continue with the ambitious ECI project, the awesome educated SUs project and all the useful toolkits and amazing workshops! I\u2019m sure the next working group will continue to motivate SUs’ organisers to use their events as opportunities to increase the civic competencies of AEGEEans. We will also deliver interesting workshops on the matter during NWM, statutory or other events and develop more materials on civic education for all AEGEEans.<\/p>\n

WG’s have been struggling to find members, how will you avoid this in the upcoming year<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

No worry about that, the current CEWG has already shown how cool it is to be one of its members, and we even have an awesome mascot, who can say no to that?! More seriously, I don\u2019t expect it to be a problem because some current members will probably apply to continue to be part of it and for the rest, I\u2019m sure our network overflows with motivated members eager to bring such a major contribution to our association! We\u2019ll make sure during Bergamo that many participants already hear about this great opportunity.<\/p>\n

You can read her full candidature here<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Written by Mireille Voorendt, AEGEE-Utrecht<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ali\u00e9nor from AEGEE-Bruxelles\/Brussels is\u00a0part of\u00a0the ECI task force and CEWG (Civic Education Working Group) and has been in her local board as a secretary, even after she moved to Groningen in the Netherlands. Obviously able to juggle various positions on local and European level, she is now running for the position of CEWG Coordinator. Despite being not that experienced, she… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":35130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[650,3],"tags":[2007,1938,1919,1809],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35127"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35173,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35127\/revisions\/35173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}