Youth Event in Portugal

Volunteers - priceless, not worthless

The outcome of this event wasn't called a declaration as usual, but just "conclusions", which were supposed to represent the results of each group. For Jan Figel, one of the next steps lies within a structured dialogue, which can lead to common understanding of problems and hopefully also to their solutions. To achieve this he also prepared an enjoyable ending of his speech by quoting Jean Monnet: "I'm neither optimist, nor pessimist. I'm determined."


By KATHARINA MOSER
from Wien, Austria


"One snowflake might melt away quickly. But many snowflakes can stop traffic." Bettina Schwarzmayr, president of the "European Youth Forum" is known to hold well done speeches in which she motivates young people to stand up for what the want and to speak it out loud. Again, she managed to do this during the opening ceremony for the "Youth Event" of the Portuguese Presidency of the European Council, which was held in Lisbon from the 14th to the 17th of September.

According to the topic "Volunteering: A Challenge for Youth Empowerment in the 21st Century" she highlighted the very suitable quote "Volunteers aren't paid, not because they're worthless, but because they're priceless".

Still smiling about this phrase, the hundred young European participants were separated in six working groups (The Role of Young People in European Construction, Employment and Entrepreneurship, Social Inclusion and Equal Opportunities, Youth Participation and Structured Dialogue, Non-Formal Education and Volunteering), in which they could carry out their -in parts never ending- discussions. Most of the participants were representatives of their national youth agencies, could no more count the numbers of similar events that they've been to on two hands and had studied something like "Politics" or "Law". But still, this didn't make the discussion like the one about lowering the voting age to 16 or not or the tries to give as specific proposals as possible to the policy maker any easier.

During the coffee breaks was also time enough to raise another question among the young people. Namely, the question of the real outcome of events like this. In spite of the very posh hotel and the expensive looking dinner that was offered to us in the fancy restaurant in Sintra, still remained a sort of disillusionment or at least scepticism according to the results of this or other youth events. Does this really change something or is it just a nice and expensive way to pretend that young people are heard within the EU?

But just because this question exists, doesn't mean that people have given up their motivation. A young guy from Sweden was still convinced that the EU has the power to change things and that this is the reason for young people to sit together in events like this and try to figure out common interests and proposals that can be given to the policy maker of the EU. Another participant pointed out that it is important to keep in view the long term results of what we discussed and not only to complain about what has not happened so far. Changes take time. Therefore we go on working on them.

And maybe, most important: first, you have to know what needs to be changed. This, for me, sounds like a good reason to have events like this.

Jan Figel, Commissioner for Education, Culture and Youth Affairs also stressed in his final speech, how important it is to step forward instead of repeating all the time what has been done and said so far. "When I was young there was a dream about unity." With these words he gave a brief insight into his personal access to his work. As we all know, nowadays this dream has already made some big steps forward. For Jan Figel, one of the next steps lies within a structured dialogue, which can lead to common understanding of problems and hopefully also to their solutions. To achieve this he also prepared an enjoyable ending of his speech by quoting Jean Monnet: "I'm neither optimist, nor pessimist. I'm determined."

Finally the outcome of this event wasn't called a declaration as usual, but just "conclusions", which were supposed to represent the results of each group. So one can say, all the snowflakes which helped to draw these conclusions surely won't lead to a traffic chaos but at least they've built a nice and acceptable "snowman" - who now just waits to be seen before time goes by and he melts away again...


(Published: 10.10.2007.)

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