The last event of Europe@myDesk took place in Brussels from April 16th to 18th 2010. Being confronted with hundreds of canceled flights due to volcanic ashes from Iceland, the participants and JEF decided to adjust the programme to the new situation, but kept most of the activities. The participants went to the Permanent Representation of Belgium to the European Union and had a presentation of its role and a presentation of the Youth in Action programme and other EU mobility programmes.
Thanks to our contacts of JEFers working in the institutions, especially Schams El-Ghoneimi, we had then the chance to have a guided tour through the European Parliament. The participants were very curious to know more about daily life and organisation of the EP. Schams, as an assistant to a French MEP, had interesting stories to tell!
On Friday evening, the participants were welcomed by the President of JEF-Europe, Philippe Adriaenssens and the Secretary-General, Peter Matjašič. During the dinner reception we announced the winners of the DeskChallenge, Maija and Rita from Latvia for their video contribution. Unfortunately they were not able to receive the prize in person.
On Saturday morning we had a session on web 2.0 tools presented by Pia Menning, the communication officer of thenewfederalist.eu. This was followed by a debate in which the participants had a chance to discuss the political use of web 2.0 media and how to be an activist on-line with Mana Livardjani from Café Babel, and Stuart Langridge from EurActiv.
After the coffee break we had a presentation of different international youth NGOs working in Brussels and heard presentations from three very different organisations. First, Katrine Korsgaard from EEE-YFU talked about the work of a so-called “exchange organisation”, then the Secretary-General of LYMEC Srđ Kisević presented the work of a party-political youth organisation and in the end Ben Vanpeperstraete, Bureau Member of the European Youth Forum (YFJ) explained how YFJ fights for the rights of young people and implements advocacy work on their behalf to institutional partners. The participants were really active and enthusiastic to hear about different NGOs and diverse points of view.
During the afternoon, the participants had a guided tour through Brussels, visiting the European Quarter and the major tourist attraction with our intern Tomas Spragg taking on the role of a guide and fulfilling it perfectly!
On Sunday morning, Peter Matjašič talked about JEF-Europe and federalism before having a power brainstorming about the Europe@myDesk project and its possible follow-up. The result were impressive and useful for the future of this project!
We would like to thank all the speakers for their great input and the participants for their involvement! It was a very nice weekend and a good final event of the project, despite the volcanic disturbance!
