EVS Youth 2002 @ 13 Danish Folk High Schools



Youth 2002 EVS project

Dasa

Sean

Hannes

Helena

Arantxa

Ágota

Barna

Simona

Ha

Mjellma

Brief description

The Youth2002 EVS-projects should be seen in the context of the project Youth2002 which was linked up with the start of the Danish EU-presidency (July 2002).

1000 young Europeans were gathered in July 2002 at 12 Danish Folk High Schools to discuss the future of Europe and to come up with a proposal for a future EUropean constitution.

By their presense Agota Illyes, Arantxa Mardones, Barna Kovacs, Dasa Bolcina, Ha Nguyen, Hanna Wennerström, Hannes Sildnik, Helena Soares Silva, Mjellma Mehmeti, Sean Bolger, Simone Saimininkaite, Stasy Kaneva and Valentina Drera were giving the project an extra international dimension.


These 12 volunteers were working at 11 different Folk High Schools and at the ACC International Programme Office. They had the following tasks:

• To compile data, articles, contributions for discussions, news releases about the core themes and from the areas of the languages they understood. These cores themes were for example globalisation, the european constitution and the eu-enlargement.
• To upload these very informations to the Youth2002-website under the headline Youth Upload Journalism to be used by all the organisers of Youth2002.
• To help preparing the common Youth2002 summer-event at the Folk High Schools.
• To help carrying out the Youth2002 summer-events at the Folk High Schools.

In general the volunteers felt very much the need of their presense within the project Youth2002. This fact made the engagement of the volunteers very high and it was appreciated very much. The volunteers contributed considerably to not only making it a European project, but also to making it a European youth project.

The Danish Folk High Schools were made very much aware of the possibilities and the challenges within the field of European general education. More of the schools are now either carrying out new EVS-projects or are considering to do it.

The European nature of the project together with the local identity and anchoring of the Danish Folk High Schools has created a unique combination for future follow-up projects. The contacts between the indidvidual schools and volunteers are in many cases going to be kept for the future.

The Youth2002 volunteers project created immense visibility for the Action 2 of the Youth Programmes.

Some few very visible and/or remarkable results should be mentioned:

• Agota Illyes and Barna Kovacs were inspired by the Youth2002 project proper to add a constitution-dimension to the Transylvania Community College 2003 of which they are the organisers.

• Helena Soares Silva followed-up with a future capital project:"East Timor: the history of the present days". Moreover Helena is going to be a trainee at the Council of the EU.

• Mjellma Mehmeti was shortly after awarded for among other things her co-ordinating role in the Youth2002 volunteers project. Mjellma Mehmeti is the Young European of the Year 2002.

• Many of the volunteers have followed-up with media contributions back home and with articles in the Journal of World Education evaluating the Youth2002-event.

• In April 2002 the volunteers organised the Experimental Constitution Community College which was meant as a test or a rehearsal before the "real" Youth2002.


Stasy
Vale
Hanna