ESU at the European Youth Event (EYE2016)
European Youth Event, the EYE, together with European Youth Forums YOfest hosted 7500 participants coming from all EU Member States and beyond. Meeting the overwhelming interest for the #EYE2016 Parliament in Strasbourg featured more than 150 activities – by young people and for young people.
ESU delegation at the event helped cohost “Exclusion or Access” hub at the YOvillage and contributed to various activities. On Friday ESU representatives focused on inclusion in Higher Education and the Social Dimension, by hosting the workshop “Achieving inclusion- What does inclusion in education mean?” Following the inclusion topic, ESU executive Committee member Rebecka Stenkvist steered the discussion and hosted the activity “Youth organisations – Inclusion for democratic engagement.” The workshops led into ongoing discussions in the Exclusion or Access Hub where ESU shared ideas with the EYE participants on #whyEducation matters.
On Saturday ESU Executive Committee member Liva Vikmane gave a presentation and stirred discussion on the effect of TTIP on higher education, highlighting the negative effects of commodification of education during the activity in the Parliament “Free trade across the Atlantic Ocean: Fair or foul?” On the other side of the Parliament, Executive Committee Member, Tijana Isoski hosted with partner organisations a workshop entitled “Volunteer angels: Non-formal education gives you wings! focusing on importance of recognition of prior learning for further education.”
The situation of refugees in Europe was as one of the burning issues discussed on a panel “Meet Young Refugees”. ESU had a chance to extend invitation to the young Syrian refugee Karam Yahya, who shared his experience on coming to Europe, struggles he had with continuing education in Europe and engaged in lively discussion with other guest speakers on what frustrations young refugees have and the way they see their future.
As follow-up, a report with the ideas discussed during the event will be made available to all Members of the European Parliament. For further information, please consult EYE website and YoFest.
