Lisbon and Youth Event..

just came from Lisbon where I was preparing with 11 more colleagues from the YouthForum the Youth event of Portoguese Presidency..

each country who is taking over the presidency (Portugal took over from Germany and will hand over to Slovenia) is organising several common meetings of all the ministries and secretariats, in order to coordinate all the actions of the involved actors, to make sure that policies are common and evrybody is coordinating towards the same direction..

one of the things they have to organise is a youth event for the young people in order to hear the voice of young people and to be aware of what youth needs and demands...usually each country is deciding if they will nominate unorganised young people (pretty much the case of Northern countries) or people from the National Youth Councils (wherever those exist) in order to be more representative (elected by other young people) or just somebody who will have to go there (appointed by the ministry or a secretariat responsibly for youth..)

it can be one of the most fun things to do while being active in the Youth sector..

Portoguese presidency choosed the subject to be "Volunteerism" and the connection it has with other relavant issues such as Active Citizenship, Employment, Non-formal education recognition, etc.


while this being my 3rd european youth event(1st European Youth Week, Austrian Youth Event), I am looking so much forward to it beacuse it is quite fun to be with all these people from the 27 countries of Europe and discussing burning issues that have to do with Europe but the same time also with us..
i will keep you updated about the results but I can already tell u that the Commisioner for Educaiton and Sports will already be there and the Commisioner for Employment..so let's hope we will have a hot debate in all the subjects..

this event was to say a bit about Lisbon but I didn't manage cause political "Yannis" took over..so I'm enclosing you one of the pictures I managed to get and I hope to make so more next week...the city looked quite beautiful (the port area mostly) and very relaxed and it's a feeling I had missed the last few months serving my service to the greek army..

hope to keep u updated of all the news...
Yannis