ACTIVATE – OBESSU Study Visit in Prague
The second OBESSU Study Visit of 2014 took place in Prague, Czech Republic at the beginning of July. As with the previous Study Visit in Kosovo, the aim of the workshop was to explore social inclusion in school student organisations. As with the previous activity in Kosovo, we also got to know the hosting organisation better. This time it was hosted by OBESSU’s Czech Candidate Organisation Česká středoškolská unie (CSU).
OBESSU Board member Dejan, together with Saša and Karolina from our Pool of Trainers, facilitated two days of workshops in Prague for student activists from all over Czech Republic. The topics of the weekend were social inclusion, organisation development and advocacy.
The first day we started to get to know each other, OBESSU, CSU and the participants. We tried to identifying the challenges that we are facing in our organisations when it comes to membership, inclusion and active participation.
The participants also imagined how would they like to see CSU in the future, what kind of projects, how to develop its membership base, how to organise their political work and the ideas were finally presented in creative ways.
During the evening we all enjoyed the projection of the Light on the Right Bus Tour, a documentary organised by OBESSU shot around Europe to foster proactive participation of school students in struggling for their rights.
The second day was dedicated to the CSU X-Factor. What are the elements that make them cool? What could attract new people to join the union? Clearly linked to one of the main challenges: how to reach to new members? Together we looked at interesting experiences, strategies and good practices from other OBESSU Member Organisations, in order to get new ideas.
The second part of the day was dedicated to explore the European dimension, see how CSU could beneficiate from European funds, and also from activities, trainings and conferences organised and implemented by OBESSU. Finally, we explored OBESSU’s work at international level, who are our partners, whom we have contacts with and which are our main fields of advocacy.
The last part of the Study Visit was dedicated to create the “Czech list”, the Action Plan CSU will implement in the future to work on its inclusion strategies, its membership base and its political platform..
We all had the feeling this weekend was a really great opportunity to think and analyse our own daily work, to get new energies, ideas and motivation to continue developing our organisations and to reach as many people as possible.
