On the 8th and 9th of October, OBESSU together with youngsters from all over Europe, participated in the European Youth Event 2021in Strasbourg. OBESSU’s delegation was composed of Board, Secretariat and Working Groups members.
Furthermore OBESSU was also joined by four very special guests from the European Changemakers Academy (ECMA) who hosted a session on activism during the first day of the event. Our young changemakers, who have been trained in community organising, mentorship and activism by more experienced peers, facilitated one of the first activities that took place inside the Parliament in this year’s EYE.
During the session, the young activists facilitated a session based on the methodology developed within ECMA using interactive tools and participatory processes. First of all, participants identified the skills that are inherent to a changemaker (such as passion, motivation or vision) and those that can be helpful (such as charisma or public speaking skills). Secondly, they identified different problems in their local communities and compared them to see how transversal or unique these issues actually are. The activity continued with the application of several project conceptualisation and management tools to propose different solutions to the mentioned problems.
During this activity, aspects like the differences between north and south in Madrid, the unaffordable price of accommodation for young people in different towns in Ireland or the loneliness of elder people in several cities of Europe were brought up.
Participants really seemed thrilled and looking forward to continuing working on the initiatives that they came up with and to learn more about the ECMA project. If you are as well, do not hesitate to check its website and resources, Instagram account or contact Juanma, our Project Officer for ECMA!