Convention on Wellbeing, Welfare and Social Autonomy of School Students
Last week in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 35 participants from OBESSU Member, Candidate and Affiliate Organisations met for a full week of learning, sharing and debating in the framework of the Convention on Wellbeing, Welfare and Social Autonomy of School Students.
The aim of the Convention on Welfare was to provide the space for analysis, discussions and sharing of experiences on school student welfare among school student activists from all over Europe. In particular to get to know the work of the Working Group on Welfare; to raise awareness on the diversity and disparity of welfare systems existing in Europe; to analyse the opportunities and challenges of different welfare systems; and to share good practices to advocate for student welfare systems.
The Convention was the “big” activity of the one-year-long project (Work Plan) funded by the European Youth Foundation (EYF) of the Council of Europe on the topic of Student Welfare, Wellbeing and Social Autonomy of School Students. Overall, the EYF Work Plan aims at providing the space to analyse, discuss and compare similarities and differences among European countries when ensuring the wellbeing and welfare of school students and to produce recommendations from the school student perspective.
The ambitious aims and objectives were translated to a very interesting and interactive programme by a team of trainers and facilitators composed by Oona and Brendan from the Board of OBESSU, Amanda from the Working Group on Welfare, Larissa from the Pool of Trainers, with the support of the OBESSU Secretariat.
Everything started on Monday 2nd of November with participants arriving to Cluj-Napoca, when we had the first welcoming evening with the group: a warm-up session for an upcoming week full of intense experiences.
Tuesday was the official start of the Convention and the day was dedicated to introduce the programme, to get to know each other and OBESSU, as well as to start digging into the topic, defining wellbeing and welfare. The day ended exploring the link between social rights and social policies with Enter to Dignityland, a very interesting and enjoyable board game by the Council of Europe. During the evening, participants deconstructed the intercultural night and created their new countries and cultures with a lot of imagination and creativity.
The second day of the Convention focused on exploring different welfare systems in Europe, as well as the outcomes they produce. Participants realised how different the systems are in Europe, but at the same time identifying some common patterns and trends. We took a look at the historic evolution of welfare systems and social policies and the different approaches that are in place. The end of the day was dedicated to see the situation of young people in Europe after the financial crisis. For this, we counted with the participation of Veronica Stefan, from Social DOers. Veronica explored the situation of young people in Europe when it comes to Early School Leaving, young people living and at risk of poverty, the levels of education and the situation of young NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training). The evening activity was dedicated to introduce the main projects OBESSU Member, Candidate and Affiliate Organisations are currently developing in their countries.
The third day was the day in which we jumped directly into the concept of student wellbeing and welfare. We started the day with a presentation from the OBESSU Working Group on Student Welfare and then participants defined what their understanding of student wellbeing was. Once the needs of school students were identified, participants brainstormed on what should be the policies related to these needs to ensure the economical, social and health wellbeing of students. After lunch, participants enjoyed their free afternoon exploring the beautiful city of Cluj-Napoca.
Friday was the day in which the Convention focused on the topic of advocacy. We started the morning further exploring social rights and the legal framework in which these are included. Participants learned about the Revised European Social Charter, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the European Declaration on Human Rights and the OBESSU Declaration of School Student Rights. For this session we counted with the participation of Iulius Winkler, Member of the European Parliament on behalf of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, RMDSZ, member of the European People’s Party (EPP). Mr. Winkler helped participants understand the role European Institutions such as the European Parliament have to fulfil and protect social rights in Europe.
After this session, participants analysed who the main stakeholders dealing with Student Welfare are, and identified governmental, civil society and community actors that are involved with different roles and levels of responsibilities. Among them, participants further focused on the role of school student unions to ensure school student welfare, both internally within their unions and externally with school students and other stakeholders. At the end of the day, they had a crash-course on how to build an advocacy message to reach the target you aim at. The evening activity was a funny and interesting pub quiz with general culture questions.
The last day of the Convention was dedicated to look at the future. Participants spent the morning working on the Conclusions of the Convention. They reflected on what were the main points of agreement they all had when it came to school student welfare and they prepared the raw material that the WG on Student Welfare will further work on to prepare the OBESSU position paper on the topic and that will be finally approved in an OBESSU statutory meeting. During the second half of the day, participants planed how to bring the content of the Convention back at home to their organisations and evaluated in general the event.
In general, both participants and the team where strongly satisfied with the Convention on Student Welfare, and everyone went home motivated to keep in mind the topic of school student wellbeing and welfare and looking forward to the final results of the WG by the end of the year.
The Convention was possible thanks to the support of the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe, the Sapienta University, the city of Cluj-Napoca and MAKOSZ. OBESSU would like to warmly thank all of them for making it possible.
Check out the pictures of the event on Facebook!!
