The European Union Youth Event 2016 (EYE2016) organised by the European Parliament took place in Strasbourg, France from Friday, 20th of May until Saturday, 21.05.2016. YMCA Europe was luckily recognised as an accredited organisation and could therefore send participants to the EYE2016.
During these two days more than 7500 young Europeans could explore the premisses of the European Parliament under the slogan of "Together we can make a change". The programme was fully packed with over 150 events like discussions, workshops and talks. Moreover there were a lot of ongoing activities, exhibitions and other interesting offers in the six different hubs, with the themes of e. g. "Stagnation or innovation", "Success or collapse", "War&Peace" or "Exclusion or access". These were located outside, in front of the parliament building in the so called "YO!-Village".
Every participant pre-booked up to six different activities which took place outside in the village, in parliamentary meeting rooms or even in the hemicycle itself. The topics discussed reached from ‘Refugees’ over ‘Climate Change’ to ‘Job opportunities’. Additionally, there was the possibility to get in touch with Members of the Parliament and express concerns about ongoing politics or the own ideas for a better future. But there was also a wide range of cultural performances by artists or musicians. In any case there was no time to get bored!
Furthermore, the amazing atmosphere provided as well a space to get to know other young Europeans and create a feeling of the ‘European Community’ instead of only having national interests. These two very intensive days culminated in the open air concert "Music has no borders".
Our YMCA-group consisted of thirteen people. Together we could learn more about advocacy and debate in discussions in favour for the interests of the youth. In addition, we carried out our own activities in the "War and peace"-hub: We invited other participants to think about their definition of peace and took photos from them with their statement, which were posted in the internet and we delivered a workshop on Critical thinking and Mass Media Manipulation.
In summary, these two days were very enriching. Not only because of a lot of input, experiences and the feeling of Europe growing closer together but also through the personal exchange with other European YMCA-members. If you have the chance to take part in the EYE 2018, don’t miss it!