ESU at the YO!Fest2019

On 30 April 2019, the European Students’ Union (ESU) participated in the Yo!Fest 2019, held at the Esplanade of the European Parliament in Brussels, within the context of the European Youth Week.

The YO!fest, organised by the European Youth Forum, hosted participants coming from all EU Member States and beyond, with the aim of bringing more young voices together.

Together with The Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (Obessu), we prepared different activities, such as the ‘EU Pub quiz’ where participants proved how much they knew about the EU and also learnt about facts linked to current European affairs and education.

As education takes a more important front seat in European discussion, we co-organised with OBESSU a panel discussion called ‘Education – What are we going to do about it? ’. The panellists invited to the debate, moderated by Katrina Koppel (Vice-President of ESU) were Jimmy Bastings (MEP candidate European People’s Party), Krystyna Ryback (MEP candidate European Green Party), Panagiotis Chatzimichail (European Educational Exchanges – Youth for Understanding) and Rob O’Donnell (OBESSU Board Member). They discussed the role future members of the EP can play in advancing free and accessible education for all. Climate change, internationalisation and digitalisation of Education were some of the topics covered by the panellists.

“It was a great opportunity to have young MEP candidates (one who is still a student himself) to join two civil society and education activists for a diverse and interesting panel. I was especially happy to have active audience participation with fresh takes on skills and future of education” said Katrina Koppel, Vice-President of ESU.