16 April, special feast for 20.000
European Students
20 years ago, it seemed as an utopia,
today the dream to bring closer European students and communicate and share the
values of democracy, cooperation and peace in Europe is a wonderful reality.
Yesterday AEGEE-Europe celebrated in Brussels its 20th anniversary of its
activity on a European NGO scene together with its external partners and the
Network via Internet broadcasting from all around the Continent, and other
ceremonies will follow during the forthcoming year.
As our
founder, Franck Biancherie says, AEGEE-Europe was born in a time called
"Eurosclerosis", when people where telling, "it will not work. People are not
interested by Europe and your organization with no national level is impossible
to run". The starting of the Association was before the international exchange
programmes, Internet, high speed train, low-cost airlines, much fewer highways,
very expensive phone costs, but the network despite the difficulties was growing
very fast and in a matter of a three years was already significantly present
throughout the European Community.
"Sleeping, waking up and sleeping again doesn't mean
life, but life is when you stay up when everybody else is sleeping." - Cretan
Poem
AEGEE has been co-operating on a regular basis
with the European Commission for implementing projects and has been consulted on
topics related to education, in particularly the SOCRATES program. AEGEE enjoys
the Participatory Status in the Council of Europe, Operational Status at UNESCO
and is a member of the European Youth Forum and European Movement.
"I've
been a member of AEGEE for only one year, but this year changed my understanding
of Europe. Before it was abstract, now it is full of
life! I met so many
interesting people and got to know so many different cultures and ways of
thinking! I think many other students should start seeing Europe that way." -
Conny Reichel, AEGEE-Passau
AEGEE brings together European students of
all study disciplines with activities such as international conferences,
seminars, exchanges,
training courses and case study trips where they analyze
a broad variety of topics from a European point of view, and discuss them
with
different experts. The focus of the association lies within four main
Fields of Action: Active Citizenship, Cultural Exchange, Higher
Education and
Peace and Stability. The activity of the association is
based on projects and these are evolving from topics that are considered
important by our members like: