AEGEE turns 25!!!: Interview with Verena

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Interview with Verena

Name: Verena Schmidt

Local: AEGEE-Tübingen

Joined AEGEE: October 2006

Position in the project team: Publications Responsible

AEGEE means to me: friendships, personal development, getting to know more about Europe

Studies: political science, English linguistics

Age: 27

Personal motto: you only live once

Favourite quote: I have a dream (Martin Luther King) – you need a vision to do sth extraordinary

Songs that get easily stuck in my head: “Can’t get you out of my head” (Kylie Minogue), “Everytime” (the flames), “reach” (S Club 7) and ABBA songs

If I were a cartoon hero I’d be: as AEGEE member: one of the Smurfs, fighting the big bad evil, otherwise maybe also a mix of Snoopy and Charly Brown

I can’t live without: friends, movies, music, books

Magical power I’d like to have: to beam me from one place to another, to fly

If I was not in AEGEE25 team, I’d be dealing with other AEGEE publications

Visions for AEGEE 2035: there’ll be projects that do have an impact, also outside of AEGEE

I would like to thank: Charlotte Lerg for telling me about AEGEE, Anna Gabriel for being an information source when I was still new on European level, Nadine Karbach for many nice memories and being such a good role model

Nadine Karbach for honorary member!

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About AEGEE

AEGEE - European Students’ Forum

AEGEE (Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de l’Europe / European Students’ Forum) is a student organisation that promotes co-operation, communication and integration amongst young people in Europe. As a non-governmental, politically independent and non-profit organisation AEGEE is open to students and young professionals from all faculties and disciplines – today it counts 15.000 members, active in more than 240 university cities in 43 European countries, making it the biggest interdisciplinary student association in Europe.

AEGEE, which was founded in 1985 in Paris, puts the idea of a unified Europe into practice. A widely spread student network provides the ideal platform where youth workers and young volunteers from 43 European countries can work together on crossborder activities such as conferences, seminars, exchanges, training courses, Summer Universities, Case Study trips and Working Group meetings.

By encouraging traveling and mobility, stimulating discussion and organising common projects AEGEE attempts to overcome national, cultural and ethnic divisions and to create a vision of young people’s Europe. The structure is based on an European level (a European Board of Directors working in Brussels and 4 Commissions, 11 Working Groups and 9 multinational Project Teams) and on a local level (the 240 antennae or local groups, forming the Network).

The association’s main aims are:

Promoting a unified Europe without prejudices,
Striving for creating an open and tolerant society of today and tomorrow,
Fostering democracy, human rights, tolerance, cross-boarder cooperation, mobility and European dimension in education.

All the numerous events and projects run by the organisation are to be focused on our 4 Fields of Action (Cultural Exchange, Active Citizenship, Higher Education, Peace & Stability) and 3 Focus Areas (European Citizenship, Global Challenges and Intercultural Dialogue).

Among AEGEE’s most well-known achievements there are the establishment of the Erasmus Programme, in which AEGEE has been directly involved, and its longest running project, the Summer University, gathering each summer thousands of volunteers who contribute to open a new perspective to the participants over the multicultural dimension of the European continent, providing high-content, high-quality and low-cost summer courses (ranging from language courses to seminars about political, cultural, environmental issues).

AEGEE has participatory status in the activities of the Council of Europe, consultative status at the United Nations, operational status at UNESCO and is at the same time a member of the European Youth Forum. The organisation has also a number of illustrious personalities amongst its general partners: Mikhael Gorbatchev, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize; Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic; Eric Froment, former President of the European University Association, Wolfgang Thierse, former President of the Bundestag and Romano Prodi, former Primeminister of Italy and President of the European Commission.

AEGEE25 Project at a glance

AEGEE turns 25 and the year 2010 will be full of activities to celebrate this moment: exchanges, contests, conferences and more activities will mark 2010; the events will take place in different edges of our Network.

April 16th of 1985 was the day AEGEE held its first conference in Paris with topics related to the paralysation of the European integration process. Starting with just six locals in Western Europe, AEGEE became a platform for students from Europe to discuss the future of Europe. A lot has happened since 1985: with the disappearence of the Iron Curtain, AEGEE was able to embrace Eastern Europe and it was just a matter of time before the first city in Eastern Europe would join AEGEE. Even today, locals in Central and Eastern Europe prove to be valuable for the European society. AEGEE is even moving beyond the accepted European borders and was founding locals in Russia, Turkey and a few years ago, locals were founded in Georgia and Azerbaijan.

25 years later AEGEE has 230 locals, scattered all over Europe with more than 15.000 members, ten working groups and several projects and together we strive to reach the aims as established during the beginning years of AEGEE: the promotion of a unified Europe without prejudices, creating an open and tolerant society of today and tomorrow and fostering democracy, human rights, tolerance, cross-boarder co-operation, mobility and European dimension in education.

AEGEE25 is not only to celebrate the 25 years of existence of AEGEE but also to show Europe that we are a multicultural organisation with locals in every country in the European Union and even outside the European Union. We want to highlight AEGEE' s accomplishments in the fields of cultural exchange, active citizenship, higher education and peace & stability. The aim of this project is to look at the past, present and future of AEGEE: what has AEGEE done for its members and the European society? How are our projects relating to the European society? What can we develop AEGEE so that AEGEE members can contribute more to the European society?

All students involved in AEGEE do this on a voluntary basis and as 2011 will be also European Year of Volunteering, we would like to emphasise the need of volunteer work to create a better European society. The year 2010 will therefore be full of activities which will contribute to achieve the aims of this project: exchanges, contests, conferences and more activities. In total, the events will take place in different edges of our Network and will make 2010 a year AEGEE will not forget.

Focus areas

• European Citizenship
• Intercultural Dialogue
• Global Perspectives
• Human Resources Development
• Organizational Development
• Quality Assurance

Events

Higher education

* Non-formal education (AEGEE-Sofia)
* Job and Mobility (AEGEE-Cagliari)

Peace&stability

* Youth unemployment (AEGEE-Torino)
* Visa problems (AEGEE-Beograd)

Active citizenship

* Volunteering (AEGEE-Kyiv)

Cultural exchange

* Change of cultural identity (25 years vs. now) (AEGEE-Sankt-Peterburg)
* Multiculturalism, intercultural dialogue and globalization (AEGEE-Lublin)
* Slavic World (AEGEE-Praha)

* Opening ceremony in Paris
* Summer event by AEGEE-Valletta
* cooperation with SUCT and AEGEE-Las Palmas e Istanbul
* 25th Anniversary celebration of AEGEE-Madrid and AEGEE-München
* Post-AGORA event in Izmir
.... and more events...

The final convention will take place in Brussels in December 2010:
AEGEE. PAST.PRESENT.FUTURE. Our values: are they still valid? Do we set up new goals?

Competitions
Photo and Video contest with the exhibition at Fall AGORA Istanbul.