you can download the results of AEGEE's Balkan Strategy Meeting I as a wordfile! If you want to know more or have comments, you can contact for example: Linda Baan (linda@wxs.nl) Angela Comand (s37250@vela.cc.uniud.it) Frank Burgdörfer (burgdorfer@bigfoot.com)
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Network Development in the region can mean nothing else than (better) integration of locals all over the region into our general network as equal partners. Strengthening the network basically can have three dimensions:
Concerning AEGEE's presence in the Balkans one can distinguish three different kinds of areas:
Concrete Steps: For the locals from area A) a second Strategy Meeting should be organised. It should gather predominantly people from the region. Topics to be discussed are for example: common projects, the own role in the network, potential support of network expansion to area B). In area B) we should try a step by step approach with the final aim to establish new locals:
Additionally we should try to establish personal contacts to Kosovo, to invite people from there to all kinds of meetings and events taking place, and to involve them in projects. "Bridges to Kosov@" could have an important role here.
It was agreed that AEGEEs main emphasise should be put in:
Christian Schwehm presented the preperations taking place in Germany for a programme aiming to set up a network of democratic Serbian and Kosova-Albanian students with a sustainable cooperative impact. During the planned scholarship programme of AEGEE students will get an opportunity to study abroad for one year and thereby represent a bridgehead for the democratic opposition. The selection of candidates will be done by an independent board composed of different professors as well as of sponsors and organisers of the programme. AEGEE will use its contacts to democratic opposition groups in Serbia in order to initiate an official competition with transparent criteria of assessment. The financial funds necessary will have to be collected via public funds and private business sponsors. As soon as these funds will be available, the application process will be set up. The participants agreed that the approach should be expended to other host countries if possible. It was agreed to stick to a kind of national level in the different countries as this seems to be a lot more convinient for fundraising and getting patrons. Marcus wanted to try to set up a cooperation with UNESCO and Linda is going to help to watch out for subventions of the EU that seem suitable. The local HRWG in Utrecht (Else as its president) is taking care of realising the program in the Netherlands, Costas Rigos of AEGEE Piräus is trying to set something up in Greece and Mauro, Marco and Angela are watching out for a coordinator in Italy.
As Sander Veenis could not be present, Uta Sievers informed us about the current state of the Project "Bridges to Kosov@". Bridges to Kosov@ is a project with the aim to build a group of Kosovar Serbs and Albanians that will organise activities in the framework of mutual understanding and peace building in the Kosov@ Region, and which has a strong European orientation. Communication is the foundation of understanding. That is why the aim of the project is to develop a basis of a interethnic dialogue. The longer term aim is to have the participants themselves develop concrete projects aimed on peace building, mutual understanding and the rehabilitation of a civil society, respect for human rights and develop an orientation on Europe. The programme of the project roughly exists of four parts: two travels, one seminar and one final conference. The travels form the basis of the seminar; the total of these five will be presented at a final conference. Curremtly the project team is establishing contacts to people in Kosovo and preparing the Case Study Trips.
In order to attract potential members in areas we are not present yet and to give them an opportunity for experiencing AEGEE an exchange of students from the Balkan region and members of AEGEE antennae elsewhere will be organised. A visit could last between a week and ten days. During this time the people will learn about the education system in the other country, will experience the everyday life, and will get known to each other. Hosts and Guests can possibly also attend some kind of AEGEE event nearby Midhat Kapo from Sarajevo suggested the following concept: 5 to10 students e.g. from BH and equal on AEGEE side establish contacts to each other. Accommodation is organised in families. The Programme will be made by the host group. "The main goals are to
We will form groups in different places and will not give to them this offer right away. They have to form group and make preparations. AEGEE will find antennas in Europe who are interested in this. Next is to establish contact with AEGEE antennas. What is very important that partner antennas and groups in BH find professors who will support this project. Institutional support and formal invitations from AEGEE antenna and host University we will make fundraising easier. In BH we will work throughout AMI (Alternativna Mirovna Inicijativa - Alternative Peace Initiative).Groups from Bosnia-Hercegovina are one common project with common fundraising.".
People from all over Europe could collect newspaper articles (mainly positive ones) on the Balkans. These could be translated into English and a kind of a booklet could be published that gives a kind of an overview on the situation there emphasising the chances while not neglecting the dangers. This idea is somehow similar to the one behind "Plan B", an initiative from the Netherlands during the war. There intention was to collect essays written by European students. Another interesting idea could be to review the numerous contributions written for AEGEE's mailing lists AEGEE-L, FoFY-L and IPWG-L during the war and afterwards. Taking this material a very interesting booklet on different points of view concerning the Kosovo war could be edited.
In the past, e.g. during Sergio Caredda's CD membership, AEGEE used to publish press releases presenting own points of view on important developments in the Balkans. During the discussion a majority came to the opinion that such activities should not be exeggerated. However, we also agreed that constructive and well-considered statements on important problems and developments could shape AEGEE's image and would for sure find interest of media and organisations/institutions concerned. Our special chance is to have people on "different" sides of conflicts respectively in the Balkans and in other parts of Europe. The challenge is to bring together capable people and to produce serious results.
One team discussed concrete topics for a series of events. These are suggestions to be developed further with people interested. I) Title: The Break up of Yugoslavia Type of event: Conference and simulation Content of event: Evaluation of the political and socio-economic history of Yugoslavia from the post-Second World War period until the beginning of the war of 1991. This Proposed place for the event: Ljubljana Proposed number of participants: Around 50 Proposed topics of the discussions and lectures:
II) Title: Surviving in Bosnia: During the War and Eversince Type of event: Conference and simulation Proposed place for the event: Sarajevo Proposed topics of the discussions and lectures:
Subject of simulation: Dayton Agreement with the imaginary participation of Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian EU plus the US representatives.
III) Title: Once Upon a Time "In the Balkans", (or Godfathers): Corruption and Organized Crime Type of event: Conference Proposed place for the event: Romania Proposed topics of the discussions and lectures: Transition Period, privatisation and its relevance to occurrence of corruption and organized crime, violence, social disorder
IV) Title: Movie time in the Balkans: It is Show-time Type of event: Film festival and discussions and/or conferences on the films of the Balkans with the participation of the directors, critics, journalists, etc. Proposed place for the event: Szeged
V.) Title: Master/Monster of the Game Type of event: Conference Proposed place of the event: Beograd Proposed topics of the discussions and lectures: Milosevic, his way of executing power and the system he created.
4. Important Background Information Linda Baan explained some basics on fundraising: There're three levels of FR: European, national, and local. Conditions for receiving financial support are various, for this reason it is necessary to think in each concrete case about the most promising alternative. For the European Institutions there are 4 possibilities/programmes where to get money. AEGEE already as experience with all of them. During the discussion several suggestions where made: Fund raising activities should be coordinated on a national level; contacts to foundations should be collected in lists and provided in the virtual office; udually having good patrons helps a lot with private fund raising. Concerning the concrete projects we found out the following: For "Education for democracy" the EU programmes are not applicaple. However, Christian Schwehm was very optimistic about private fund raising and involving companies. For the Exchange Programme the "Mobility fund" might be appropriate though local fundraising and certain foundations might be even more promising. For getting funds for conferences the European Youth Foundation turned out to be a very promising address.
Marcus Khoury pointed out that the press agencies really want to know what AEGEE does in the Balkans! If anything is being prepared the information should be passed on to through BalkanAct-L. This way everybody can promote other activities together with own ones. He also asked everybody to hand on any press contacts existing to the headoffice in Brussels. This way also the Balkan-related contacts can be included in AEGEE's PR database, which assures some kind of continuity also when other people take over. He also encouraged everybody to send information on things going on to the list for another reaqson: This can be motivating for others. Finally he mentioned the "Culture of Peace" year of UNESCO. If AEGEE contributes events under this umbrella we have good opportunities for PR, for result publications, and for patronage.
Nothing can be planned without the people to realise it! This is the reason why the logical next step must be another meeting gathering the people of our locals in the region (such as Beograd, Blavoevgrad, Novi Sad, Skopje, Thessaloniki, Timisoara....). Other people interested can also attend it. Not only thematic work should discussed their but also possible contributions of the locals existent to a further development of our network in this part of Europe. 5.2. Contact building in Bosnia&Hercegovina, Monte Negro, and Albania After we have first contacts to Bosnia and also Monte Negro we now need to put effort in finding more people, providing information about AEGEE for them, and inviting them to AEGEE events. The exchange programme mentioned above can also be an important contribution to this. As soon as realistic a Network Development meeting could take place e.g. in Sarajevo where the new contacts could be brought together. Sander Veenis will travel to Kosovo in the beginning of September together with some other people. The aim of this Fact Finding Mission II is to establish contacts for the project Bridges to Kosov@. Based on these personal contacts we should invite people from Kosovo to participate also in other events and projects. After intensive discussions a clear majority voted in favour of a new mailing list for the coordination of AEGEE's Balkan Activities. The name "FoFY" was not seen as appropriate. Even more important: People felt it to be necessary to mark a "new start". Directly after the meeting the new mailing list "BalkanAct-L" was established. Two points are important about the new name: The list concerns the Balkans and its neighbourhood as one unit and does not only deal with the former Yugoslavia. And the communication going on there is dealing with AEGEE Action only. General discussions on problems which are not directly related with AEGEE projects or initiatives take place at specific discussion lists. (This should also give an end to cross-mailing e.g. to FoFY-L and IPWG-L as it became quite common over time.) BalkanAct-L is already open for subscriptions, the participants of the Ljubljana Meeting are subscribed. Subscribers to FoFY-L will be invited to join the new list and/or discussion lists before FoFY-L will be closed down in the end of September. The FoFY-L archives will remain in the world wide web. 5.5. Discussions at PM and AGORA The statutory meetings to come will be used for informing everybody interested about the things going on, to encourage people to take part in the projects existing already, and to collect more ideas and impressions for future action.
The participants were asked to answer seven questions concerning the purposes, realisation and outcome of the meeting. The majority of the participants answered all of them. Concerning the form of the meeting almost 90% of participants stressed the advantages of brainstorming in the small, culturally mixed groups. They also liked the idea of presenting the results at the plenary and discussing them together. Some participants complained on the actual rhythm of the work during the workshops: the lack of a sort of a chairman actually prolonged the discussions and made the effective work harder as too much time was consumed. Almost 50% of participants liked the enthusiasm of the people involved. 40% of participants would have liked to include also the rest of the Balkans in the discussions and they felt that the stress put on the FY was too restrictive. As for the ideas for the future almost everybody would like to involve more people from the region in question because without them the work done would have no effect. Some are interested in introducing more representatives of the Network in the Balkan Action. Thus the general feeling was to try and get more locals involved. The most important point for almost everybody was not to waste the results of these 3 days in Ljubljana. Some of the participants stressed the importance of linking Ljubljana meeting with the one still to happen by an evaluation of the work done since Ljubljana. Participants also gave some hints how to organise the next meeting. They would like to have more time to their disposition and clear agenda with even more clear content in order to get more focused on more detailed problems. And they would like to discuss as well the problems of other parts of the Balkans, not only FY. The majority of participants was sceptical as to the outcome of the meeting. Although they mainly were satisfied with the results they seemed worried with their actual implementation. In order to get it all done better some of the participants suggested to establish some form of co-ordination or co-operation between the people involved. What did they like the best? .....Frank. (3 answers - sic!) - as the discussion leader and chairman of course... All the participants were highly satisfied with lodging, food and evening activities. And all were grateful to AEGEE-Ljubljana for the help and assistance. 99% didn’t ask for more leisure activities. If you need any more detailed information, please do not hesitate to contact me. Agnieszka Weinar |
