ESU Board goes to Azerbaijan to discuss human rights

Human rights, academic freedom and ESU priorities for the next three years. These are some of the issues that Europe’s national unions of students will debate in Baku on December 1-5.

ESU’s Board Meetings are preceded by a seminar on a chosen topic. This time, the main objective of the seminar is to familiarise participants with the topic of human rights and some of the issues specifically relevant to students as members of the academic community. The seminar will also shed some light on the human rights situation in the region. Read more about the programme of the seminar here.

Speakers and workshop facilitators have extensive experience from rights and anti-discrimination work. Gabriela Bergan (former ESU human rights coordinator) and George-Konstantinos Charonis (IGLYO) will talk about  anti-discrimination work from an LGBTQ perspective (LGBTQ: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer). Jesse Levine from Scholars at Risk will give an introduction to the organisation’s efforts to measure academic freedom in the world. Danish and Norwegian student associations will talk about student cooperation across the globe.

After the seminar, the national unions of students will have enough on their plate also during the Board Meeting itself.

“There will be many interesting discussions on the priorities for the upcoming three years. The plan of work and the budget will also be discussed. We are certain that at the end of this week we will have a clear and hopeful vision for ESU’s future,” said Elisabeth Gehrke, ESU Chairperson.

This Board Meeting and seminar is ESU’s first large-scale event in the Caucasus region. The hosts are the Azerbaijan Student Youth Organisations’ Union (ASYOU) and the Azerbaijan Students Union (ASU). Both are ESU members.

Board Meetings of ESU are organised twice a year. Delegates from all 47 national unions of students that are members of the organisation are invited. The board meetings act as the highest governing body of ESU, in which delegates get the opportunity to shape ESU’s policies and plan of work.