European Panel

"Youngsters within knowledge based society"

This is first of a kind project with such a huge impact, covering almost all Europe and considering the advice of the European youth. From each national panel between 10 and 15 people will be invited to take part in the meeting in France. This summer they are about to discover what is knowledge based society, what it really means to have the European mentality, how to be active as citizen and top of all what it means to be heard


By MAYA EMILOVA ANGELOVA
from Veliko Tarnovo, BULGARIA


Three days ago ended the second preparation meeting for the European panel "Youngsters within knowledge based society". The panel is initiated by the French Presidency and Les Petites Debrollards- a French Organization working with youngsters. The panel will be held in 25 countries in the same time and will end in October 2008 with a general assembly meeting in Poaties, France.

The project affects hot European topics such as the relations between knowledge, science, politics and power, the European citizenship matters and the intercultural dialogue in general. One of the coordinators- Frederique Tabautau thinks that this is a chance for all young people to get to know Europe better and a great chance for the scientists to get to know the young people more and work together as a team.

The European panel is structured by 25 national panels, held in European countries within June and September. Every panel itself is structured by workshops, seminars and team building meetings, dialogues with politics and scientists. After all national panels are finished in early October, there is a meeting planned with more than 300 youngsters who took part in the initiative. A meeting and general assembly will take place in Poaties and Paris which will aim for the youngsters to make 20 recommendations to the European Commission. This can be perhaps the biggest possibility for young people to be heard on such a high level. In both meeting and general assembly politics will be invited to listen this time, not only speak.

This is first of a kind project with such a huge impact, covering almost all Europe and considering the advice of the European youth. From each national panel between 10 and 15 people will be invited in the average age of 18 to take part in the meeting in France. Their tasks are not as simple as just gathering and speaking. This summer they are about to discover what is knowledge based society, what it really means to have the European mentality, how to be active as citizen and top of all what it means to be heard.

On the second preparation meeting for the panel I also had the pleasure to meet one of the participants from the Bulgarian panel - Darena Milkova (19), who is pretty optimistic about the national presence in such a big forum and thinks that even though Bulgaria is EU member just from a little more than a year it is not a thing to be worried about: "I think that me and my colleagues from the panel will be able to present our country and our knowledge in the best possible way. I don't think that we will be isolated or something, just because Bulgaria is new in this kind of forums. For example the NGO I work in "Moga Znam Tvorya-Varna" - which is a local Les Petites Debrollards organization has so good relations with a lot of international NGOs, and all the time we are preparing youth exchanges, workshops and international animations in order to get to know the youth in Europe. I just think that this panel is really good opportunity not only for me to get to know Europe, but also for Europe to get to know me!"

One of the most impressive moments in the whole organization of this project is the database website. In it every national coordinator has "files" with each participant, the partner organization in each country, the scientists working within the national and European panel, data for the meetings and every seminar which is to be held related with the panel. The database is almost as the panel's personal Google. There are articles, some links for books, or websites who impressed the young participants and also yet to be prepared their personal motivation file for why they are taking part in the panel at all.

But what is the influence in the European process from all that meetings? Lionel Larque and Frederique who are the two general coordinators for the panel think that this is just a step towards the cooperation for working with youth in Europe, a small step for the youth but great step for Europe!


(Published: 10.06.2008.)