Dear friends,
SUs are so near all the organizer
Antennae must start to work for VISAS!
All of us know it's something very
important and very awful because always the SU of a lot of AEGEEns depends
on the procedure to obtain that nasty stamp.
As SubCommie and Speaker of the Visa
Freedom Fighters WG (VFF), I'll try to help you
as I can in this nasty matter.
First of all, dear friends, I would
like to communicate you can find a good support for your visas in the VISA
BOOKLET, an on-line tool of the VFF where you will find info about who needs
visa and for which country. At the moment we are updating it (things
about visas change quickly!), but be sure I'll advise you when VB will be
ok.
Now I'll try to give all the Visa
Responsibles of each Antenna of this Region organizing a SU some suggestions.
It's something from my personal
experience, then they're not strict rules: only suggestions, and lots of
Responsibles, that are just old foxes in AEGEE, will know them, but my idea is
to support young members and first of all young locals.
First of all I suggest you to take
immediately a contact with your partecipants needing visa: they must have a
different deadline for everything. You will lose a lot of time for their visas,
then you must anticipate all the dates.
If you require some percentage
of the fee in advance, ask your partecipants to be as quick as possible, and
when you receive the amount start immediately the procedure for visas.
You need one month from the day you
send the Consulate the request of visa to the day your partecipants will receive
their visas.
Then the first thing is asking the
partecipants if they need visas. Anyway it's usually written in the application
you receive,... but a check is better.
Today usually people from Jugoslavia,
Bosnia, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Turkey, Moldova, Albania need a visa, but
please check with attention because it's different for each country. You can
check calling your Ministry of Foreign Affairs or visiting its web page. In this
way you can also obtain the telephone number and first of all the FAX NUMBER of
the Visa Office in the Consulate of your country nearest your partecipant
(remember! The Consulate must be in the country of your partecipant also if an
other one is nearer: a rare exception can be when a Consulate in a small country
is not organized with a Visa Office. In this case your partecipant must
communicate you where he's able to obtain the
visa.).
When you know the FAX NUMBER (ONLY
the fax or sometimes the ordinary mail! No e-mails, no telex, no phone of
course!) of the Visa Office of the right Consulate send immediately a request of
visa concerning your partecipants.
It must be written on a
letterhead sheet and it must contain:
-
A list of your partecipants
needing a visa from that Consulate. In the list for each partecipant there
must be: name, surname, date of birth, place of birth, nationality, residence
address, city, country and passport number (ask your partecipants for this
info as soon as possible! Without them they usually can't obtain any
visa.).
-
The name of
your event.
-
The exact address of those
partecipants during all the SU (pay attention! The Consulate can ask the police to check it during the SU!).
-
The exact dates you ask for the
visa (ask for the visas calculating also one or two days more for the
arrive and one or two days more for the departure).
-
A specifical statement where you
take under the responsability of your local all the expenses of the
partecipants concerning lodgement, meals and transports inside your
city.
-
Your manual signature
-
Your name and surname, your e-mail
address, your telephone and mobile numbers, your home address
-
If you have it, the web page
of your local
In the attachment your can find an
exemple of this request.
Then you must add to this request
also:
-
A clear scanned copy of your
Identity Card (pay attention! They have to compare the
signatures!).
-
A short presentation of AEGEE in
general and of your local.
-
A short presentation of your
SU.
-
If you have the support of the
University, of an Institution or similars, also a letter of
theirs.
When you have sent the Visa Office of
the Consulate this documentation by FAX I suggest you to send also each
partecipant the same material. In this case an e-mail is ok (the partecipants
have only to print it: it can be useful when they will go to the Consulate; they
can just show the same material you have just sent the Visa Office.
).
When you send this material by
e-mail, it's usually too huge: to solve the problem avoid to send the
partecipant also your IC copy (it's important only for the Consulate!), but
advise them the Consulate just has it.
In this e-mail advise the
partecipants they must go immediately to the Consulate asking for their
visas.
In the same time, if you can, it's
better for you to call the Consulate asking news about your documentation:
sometimes it arrives not readable, sometimes the visa officers need something
more. Be sure, at the end, that your material is ok.
Advise your partecipants they must
absolutely communicate you if and when they receive their
visas!
Last suggestion: take constant
contacts with your "visa candidates". They are used to disappear during the
procedure and, when you just think they can't come, they are used to appear
again :-) .
It's usually a problem of e-mail
communication.
Finally, if you know your
partecipants just received their visas, but they don't come, advise your police
department: you don't damage your "partecipants" but you guarantee yourself.
Don't forget: when you send the
Consulate your IC copy, you are accepting to be responsible for them. It's
anything so hard (advising the police you lose all your responsabilities), but
anyway it's not a joke!
An important
thing: also after all this procedure YOU CAN'T BE SURE TO RECEIVE ANY VISA.
Finally it's
always something absolutely imponderable,
but remeber:
IT'S NOT
AN AEGEE EVENT IF YOU DON'T RISK ACCEPTING ALSO PARTECIPANTS NEEDING VISAS!
IT WILL BE
ALSO A GREAT HOLYDAY, BUT BE SURE: YOU ARE JUST OUT OF AEGEE!
Have great Summer Universities,
friends!
Regards
Luca
----------------------------------------
Luca Falcone
President
AEGEE-Napoli
Network Sub-Commissioner RAINBOW Region
Speaker Visa Freedom
Fighters
PR Responsible AEGEE HRWG
Secretary Bobigosa
WG
e-mail address: [log in to unmask]