AEGEE Sustaining Our Future Blog

UN-Habitat World Urban Youth Assembly International Essay Competition: Deadline 28.02.10

2010-02-24T12:38:00.009+01:00

The SuFU Project is almost over, but there are plenty of interesting events going on all around the world, which touch the topics we discussed through last 2 years. If you are active, interested in the issues of sustainable urban development and want to expand your professional network and to get new friends from all over the world, we strongly advise you to apply for the Youth Assembly of World Urban Forum organised by UN-HABITAT.

Moreover, UN-HABITAT invites all young people, aged between 18 to 32, to participate in the World Urban Youth Assembly Essay Competition. Deadline for the entries is 28 Feb 2010.

SuFu team wishes you good luck!

Beginning of the results' booklet

2010-01-13T18:41:00.007+01:00

SuFu time is coming to an end. All our events have finished and new flagship project has already kicked off.
So, now we are here, maybe in the beginning of maybe our most important task: how to show out what we achieved. After the great news of receiving grant for making the booklet, SuFu team gathered once more for the new year, to evaluate the project and make plans for the booklet. Our dear team member Miguel was this time the generous host in Alicante.
The meeting was most productive, not to mention all the fun we had :P We set the timeline, the thematic topics, the structure and many more things that will finally be compiled into great results of the whole "Sustaining our Future" project.
So, stay tuned, if all goes well, you will see it at Agora Leiden. And of course, it will be printed on recycled paper with environmental friendly colours in a company that uses renewable energy :)

Flagship Projects in Nightmare Before Christmas

2009-12-19T13:27:00.005+01:00

Writing again from Madrid, same location where we had our workshops during SuFu and the City. So nice good memories... AEGEE-Madrid has organized its LTC, a tradition for december in this South West corner of Europe: Nightmare Before Christmas is the name, and it celebrates now its third edition.

This year the aim is to present a very important set of information to new members of antennae South of the Pyrinees: the importance of Flagship Projects in AEGEE, and especially to show our antennae what can they do in this framework. It has been conceived by a great team of trainers, coming from several antennae under the supervision of the NetCommie Oscar.

We have started early this orning (yeah!) with basic presentations on AEGEE structure and history, to warm up; soon we came into a review of past Flagship Projects, with their objectives and the tools (events) they created to achieve them. Of course we gave special attention to our dear SuFu project, which was presented in detail, event by event, before giving entry to people from Beyond Europe.

Let's hope that, after their case work during the rest of the LTC, an antenna will come up with the motivation, ideas and will to organize another Flagship Project event down here... SuFu and the City was a great success, let's try to repeat it soon!

Alicante awaits us...

2009-12-15T15:06:00.004+01:00

Here in Morocco is sooo cold, I want to arrive home in Alicante next week (after a stop in LTC Madrid - Nightmare before Christmas III) and start preparing our traditional NY meeting. This time I will be the host, and it is a pleasure and honour after having been so well treated in Estonia and Greece.

I am really looking forward to meet again all those friends, some of them will be together for 4th year in a row, what a record! For some others will be the first, a nice comeback after a year of absence, and unfortunately some people won't be able to join us this year :( We will have you present in our hearts, that is for sure, because we are the Panda team!

Kadri is working on the program, because we will be there for work; but I will try to prepare the social agenda, with NY party, and hopefully we can squeeze there some outdoor activity as usual (what about climbing the mountain in the picture?). Yes! the sea is there so we will be able to swim again like past year. For those of you who are cold-blooded, there will be also sauna :)

Countdown already started, there are just 12 days till first of you come to Alicante...

SuFuing in the city

2009-11-04T19:47:00.009+01:00

4 SuFu Team members...
1 whole antenna working 24h...
A great team of participants...
The support of the Youth in Action program from the European Commission...
A big city to discover from a different point of view...

These are the ingredients for SuFu and the city, a seminar that at this very same moment is having place in Madrid. As we are more or less passing the equator of the week, we can say that it is doing very well. We spent the morning at the waste recycling plant of Valdemingomez; providing service for the whole city (4.5 million people), it is a small city on itself where all the packages and organic waste is prepared for being recycled. On previous days, IUCN speaker Russell Galt showed us the interactions between biodiversity and urban environment, and gave us the opportunity to provide ideas for the future evaluation system of urban biodiversity. We also could learn about citizen initiatives struggling with legislation to have the right to transform an empty space into a public open area for the neighbours, with vegetable garden, sport fields, and even an open air theater! And more and more activities that fill our mornings, afternoons and nights.

Here you can have some impressions from Filip, from AEGEE-Skopje, one of our participants:
"Great seminar, lots of interesting visits and speeches, and all of that in the wonderful city of Madrid. Love it !!". Anyway we will not stop working hard to make the second half even better, we are motivated to close the SuFu cycle with another successful project accomplished!

Now we have to leave you, here it is hard to find some free time :) Participants are now doing a Architecture Photo Rally...

SuFu going to Agora!

2009-10-20T21:38:00.004+02:00

It has been long time since our last post... but nevertheless we haven't stopped working. Now it's time to head towards the capital of Ukraine for AEGEE Autumn Agora. And of course we will have some things prepared for you!

We will have some very special things to offer: that will keep you warm, or that you can use to send good wishes to your friends abroad... And rumour goes around, that 2nd episode of SuFu Panda adventures will be premiered in Kyiv...

You can also meet us in workshop on Saturday, to hear about the results of survey made last year among AEGEE members and SuFu follow up activities. Also some people from AEGEE-Leiden will be there to give you some inside info, how our next Agora plans to be little bit more green.

This time, SuFu team members also try to set an example and reach Agora in a more sustainable way. Miguel is soon to take train from Poland to Ukraine, while Kadri and Katrin together with AEGEE-Tallinn team will start their road trip on Wednesday evening. See you in Kyiv!

2nd Danube event to start in Bratislava

2009-09-07T13:28:00.004+02:00

So, here we are now: first participants arrived to our hotel in Bratislava and in the evening it will be the welcome party of the 2nd event from "Danube.Let if flow!".

Just few weeks after the 1st event in Danube Delta, in Romania, "Danube - source of inspiration" will now be followed by "Danube - most international river in the world". As you might have read from SuFu newsletter, the 1st event was indeed great success and probably this one won't be any different :-)

The weather is nice and sunny, hotel fancy, local organisers helpful and participants seem enthusiastic. We will have great week ahead: lectures and workshops from both professionals and SuFu team members, outdoor European Night, boat trip to Vienna, waltz dancing lessons and much more.

Stay tuned for our impressions later on :-)

Slow summer time does not stop SuFu team

2009-08-21T23:04:00.013+02:00

Hello All!!

I am here in my Moroccan Mountains, tired after a full day driving my 4x4 trying to get some new information about my leopards... and in the evening, trying to revive this blog that has fallen under the lazyness of the summer.

But the lack of news here doesn't mean that we have not been busy! At the moment, the event Danube: Source of Inspiration will be closing in the amazing environment of Danube Delta. I am sure soon our Danube Girls will update you on what happened. And soon, second part of Danube Project will happen in Bratislava - Danube: Most International River in the World (Sept 7-13th).

I am busy with the details of another event, one that is my personal initiative, but only possible with the enthusiastic collaboration of my friends from AEGEE-Madrid: SuFu and the City, from Oct 31st to Nov 8th. More than a week to explore the role of cities in shaping a more sustainable world. 7 days full of workshops and debates, with plenty of visits and conferences, where I hope we can gather 25 young citizens from all over Europe who want to exchange ideas and discover the pros and cons of cities, the incredible power of active citizens in shaping the evolution of their cities, the trends in urban design and architecture, the secrets of urban environments. And during the nights, we will explore "the city that never sleeps"!

We have chosen Madrid because it is a city that has changed a lot in the past years, and more to come with the candidature to host the Olympic Games in 2016. A city with a great park in its heart (Retiro), with one of the best Underground systems, with an active citizneship and gaining multucultural richness year by year, and lots of neighbourhoods with its own personalities. A city to discover in many layers, like a Matrioshka, is waiting for you!

If you want to learn and participate in the discussions, if you have ideas that want to share, then you are lucky!!! You can still apply till Aug 25th! It is an event funded with Youth in Action program, so you may even get flight reimboursement :) You can get more information at the intranet, in facebook, or you can ask directly leaving a comment at this post.

Due to the transition between new and old websites in AEGEE, the best way to apply is to send an email directly to AEGEE Madrid (aegeemadrid (at) gmail.com), including:

If you experience any problem with you application in the website, please send us an email to aegeemadrid@gmail.com including the following information:

Full name:

Aegee antennae:

Studies:

Date fo birth:

Sex:

Address:

Phone:

Email:

Visum required:
Passport no:
Nationality:
Place of birth:

Remarks:

Q1 Why do you want to attend this event?:
Q2 What do you know about sustainable development and urban environments?:

Q3 Tell us something about yourself:

And now I say good bye, but before leaving I inform you that tomorrow is the first day of Ramadan in Morocco... Wish me luck!

The Age of Stupid

2009-07-08T15:46:00.006+02:00

During the Geen Week in Brussels we had a great opportunity to see the new documentary called The Age of Stupid. Its a move directed and written by Franny Armstrong, a nice lady who after the movie also gave a small talk.
For me it was the best documentary I have ever seen. Documentaries tend to be just a bit boring movies that aim to pass on the message in a very neutral way. So did this movie, but in a whole new way. The narrotor, Pete Postlethwaite was the last human being on the world (year 2050) and he just wondered, what happened that it all ended up like that.....
Its not the Greenpeace wale saving mission kind of movie, its a movie that makes every single person realise that jeopardising our whole planet because of a "ruined view" is just not worth it. (Theres a very interesting part in the movie about the wind turbines in some northern English village I believe, where the local people fight against sustainable ways of producing energy because the wind turbines are diminishing the values of their view. Really!!).
I really do recommend to see the movie!!
But even better, take your sceptic friend with you and show them the movie! I think its a great movie with which we can illustrate our point.

See the trailer at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZjsJdokC0s&feature=fvst

SuFu meeting in Brussels

2009-06-28T12:25:00.006+02:00

SuFu is having a midyear meeting in Brussels at the moment.
We took this opportunity to evaluate our progress so far, plan for our upcoming events (they're going to be utterly cool, so stay tuned!!) and last but not least enjoy and improve our team spirit and try the combination of Dutch asparagus and Belgian peas in a risotto. And as it was the EU's Green Week in Brussels, we also visited there.

Because someone tried to poison our highly successful SuFu project manager, SuFu panda had to come to save the day. Naturally, we used this opportunity to make a video about all the adventures this brave panda had in AEGEE's headquarters. Of course we will share this with you soon :-)

At the meeting we had a lot of creative sessions, defined the work to be done in the future and planned how we would do the dissemination of all our results.
Because the network commission was present at the CD house too, we did a European Night together, which started with a bit late, but utterly marvelous pizza dinner made by Olya and Thomas. After that we did the presentations about each other's cultures and tasted from the nice food and beverages coming from all the different countries. The Estonians (Tiit in particular) really put their effort in it with building a genuine Estonian Sauna in a tent in the garden. Of course it took some Dutch ingeniuty to realise this Estonian project, but the end result was marvelous. And so SuFu kept it's tradition to introduce the merits of Estonian sauna to yet another member of the Comité Directeur (and all other people present).

Stay tuned for more information about our upcoming events, there are a lot of nice things coming up: Activities in the Danube project in the Danube Delta (Romania) and Bratislava (Slovakia), SuFu in the city in Madrid (Spain).

Universities going green around the world

2009-06-15T00:45:00.007+02:00

Last week I had the luck to be present in 3rd international sustainable univeristies' conference, taking place in Lausanne, Switzerland, organised by International Sustainable Campus Network. It was amazing to know that so prestigious universities like Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, etc are also taking direction towards becoming more sustainable. It was also nice to see that there were universities present in the conference from almost all the continents.
Unversities seem to be seeking sustainability in mainly 2 directions:
1) reducing the negative environmental impact of their buldings through energy efficiency, reducing water use, amount of waste, CO2 emissions, etc;
2) creating environmental awareness, involving students, scientists, management and local communities into common actions towards sustainability.

Listening to different presentations, taking part in workshops and just discussing with different university leaders, there was one clear message: students are seen as key part towards change. Universities are looking for different ways how to involve students more, as in that way it's also easier to convice other parties to contribute to changes. Also, this year, first 2 awards for sustainable universities (construction and impact award) were given out, but there is plan to create more categories, one of them being award for student initiatives. And btw, representative from Higher Education Environmental Performance Improvement in UK seemed to be quite interested in cooperation with AEGEE ;)

So I think that there is much that we as students and AEGEE memebrs could do to spread the idea of sustainable universities in Europe, to make our own universities more sustainable. There are so many good examples to show already in the world, we just need to make our voices heard. After all, universities as education and research centres can play so important role in turning whole society towards sustainability.

SuFu panda visited Ljubljana on his EDE journey

2009-06-06T19:41:00.031+02:00

One month ago a decision was made that this year SuFu panda will also visit Ljubljana among other European cities on his EDE journey. Because of this high visit we needed to start making our plan very quickly, as we really wanted to prepare something big to surprise our dear guest. On the first meeting, three weeks ago, the AEGEE-Ljubljana EDE team gathered and after a long brainstorming session we all agreed, that we wish to prepare a nice celebration eco event somewhere in nature, where we can join serious environmental topics with pure fun. So we decided to make an afternoon event under the blue sky in Tivoli, the biggest park in Ljubljana. We imagined preparing a big promotion campaign about European Day of Environment. Eco booth joined with Eco street action seemed a pretty good idea for convincing people to act more environmentally friendly. To make things little bit more interactive we also decided to prepare two workshops: the first one about climate changes in connection with renewable energies and a second one about the healthy way of living through sport activities (this time we’ve tried Pilates). But that’s not all, as we all know the European Parliament elections are just in front of us, so we also decided to finish the Yvote project in Ljubljana and we promoted European elections through the eyes of the environment as we were encouraging people to go to the elections, to vote and to take into consideration the environmental aspect while voting.

Three days ago the big day finally came. The weather forecast wasn’t one of the best for having an outside event, so we were keeping our fingers crossed that meteorologists made some mistakes while forecasting the weather for

Slovenia

. We, a team full of positive energy, gathered in the park and surrounded by nature, started with the last preparations in the early afternoon. When SuFu panda joined us at 4 p.m. and the event officially started, everything was ready for the first visitors to come. Despite some clouds the sun was shining strongly and people were coming by on their bikes, some of them were even running by, but most of them were just on the walk through the nice park with their children and pets or they were on the way home from work. When they saw that there is something unusual happening in the park, they’ve stopped and were curiously asking us what is going on. We explained them, that we’re celebrating EDE and that we wished every single one of them to start doing something good for the environment. We gave them some useful materials about different environmental topics and some materials about European elections. For the children we prepared some nicely coloured eco balloons.

We’ve also gotten two very interesting visits. First there were two policemen on horses who scared us little bit, because they could have started complicating, but in the end everything turned out ok. We gave them some apples for the horses and they took a small snack for themselves. Then they wished us luck with the weather and went their own way :) The second interesting visit was when a mother with a child came by and stopped for a while, searching for more information on what we’re doing. Then she found out we are from AEGEE and became very sentimental. She started explaining to us that she was also an AEGEEan in her younger age and that she had traveled the whole Europe with AEGEE while learning a lot and having so much fun during that time. It looked like she envied us a little bit our youthfulness, but at the same time she was so grateful for that amazing AEGEE experience and just before she left, she wished us good luck with our future projects.

As I mentioned before, we also prepared two workshops. The first one was about climate changes and the speaker from Association for Sustainable Development Focus gave us some general information about it and explained to us, what every person can do to make he’s ecological footprint smaller. The second one, Pilates workshop, was made in a more funny way and while we’re outside exercising in the nature, we made something good for our body, mind and health in general. And don’t think that guys didn’t try it, they did, we have proof; just look at the photos carefully :)

When the official part of EDE event was over, it was of course time for the unofficial part, so we went together to the eco party, where AEGEE-Ljubljana board members, SU Ljubljana team members and some of the participants of the event joined us and had fun with us. In conclusion, everything was just great - green program, cosy atmosphere, many interested visitors, nice and funny organizers and even the weather was beautiful – great success! In the end I would like to deeply thank my dear EDE team, you’ve made this great event possible and you’ve made it so special, thank you – hvala!

Panda hugs from AEGEE-Ljubljana EDE team ;-)

Photography by Blaž Šteblaj

Let's get "Sustainability" in the Spanish Dictionary!

2009-05-29T20:42:00.004+02:00

I want to share something with all of you... I found out an iniciative that links to some prevoius post fo Kadri, and it is quite interesting idea: someone found out that in the Royal Academy of Spanish Language Dictionary there is not a definition of Sustainability.

They used the technologies that are now available and created a website to promote the inclusion of the word with a proper definition; but not only that, they are also asking people to propose definitions, to arrive to a common place for such an important word nowadays. Because, if lacking a definition is bad, a bad definition would be much worse.

Here is the webiste just for you to look at (if you understand Spanish would be much better):

http://www.sostenibilidadaldiccionario.com/index.php

In the Galeria link, you can find other kind of definitions: videos , pictures... people is quite creative on definitions!

But I want to see that AEGEE people is also creative, so you can send definitions here or you can even send videos there to that website. I will translate the best ones and send them to the website, so we gain also visibility for our project!

2009-05-23T12:19:00.003+02:00

Danube Project, a Rich Source of Inspiration!

The Danube Project has just received a YiA grant for both of its seminars, one in The Danube Delta and the other in Bratislava taking place in august and september!

So, now, long preparations are being made in order to make these events trully remarkable!

The first seminar will be held in the Danube Delta, from 15-21 August.

The SuFu team has already prepared an adventurous program with study trips to local villages, to the famous Letea Forest, boat trips, workshops as well as practical activities like clean-up sessions, eco-friendly art, photo exhibition and many more to come...

But why choosing the Danube Delta for our project?

Danube Delta is literally a migrant birds paradise! Being declared a UNESCO heritage and a reservation of Biosphere the wonderful delta was formed as the Danube River reverses itself into the Black Sea.

There are around 331 species of birds, 83 species of fish, 2244 insects and 42 species of mammals, from which thousands of swans, pelicans, wild ducks and sturgeons. A very diverse flora with around 2000 types of plants has grown in the surroundings made up of channels, ponds, flooded areas and lakes as well as beaches and salt water areas. The flora also includes the famous Letea Forest, with climbing plants, elm and oak trees.

The population living in this area is quite small, the region being one of the least inhabited in Europe. There are around 27 villages in the region, in which the people usually live on what the Danube provides, by fishing, subsistence agriculture or local tourism.

The main sources of pollution come from pesticides, industrial and city residuals from the rivers that reverse into the Danube. Other source is garbage disposal form the local villages as well as from tourists.

That is why ecotourism and sustainable development are key-issues...
This is also why we have placed our project in this wonderful area!
This ...along with a possible weakness for "danubian" and romanian traditional cuisine, culture, all in an aegeean atmosphere...

EDE competition!

2009-05-18T14:44:00.007+02:00

We are glad to let you know some news for European Day of Environment!

Join a photo/video competition "Renewable energy" from May 25th till June 12th!

"Sustaining our Future" team has formed a partnership with the connect2earth initative, run by WWF and IUCN, and powered by Nokia!

1) Make a short video or photo series in the topic of renewable energy - how it could fit to our everyday life, what good can it bring, what is the future of renewable energy, etc.

2) From May 25th to June 12th, upload it to www.connect2earth.org site and remember to put your antenna name and "EDE" in the description of your post. Details how to upload your photos/videos, can be found here.

3) On June 19th, a jury composed of one member from WWF, IUCN and the SuFu team will select the winner, who will be awarded an environmental mobile phone solar charger and get a special highlight on the connect2earth site!

4) All the uploaded videos and photos will also compete in the overall connect2earth competition lasting throughout the year, with the final prize of participation in the UN Climate Change Negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

You can already check out the site now: www.connect2earth.org

How to define "sustainable development"?

2009-05-09T21:45:00.008+02:00

I'm sure most people have heard this term somewhere. Another thing is to actually understand what is meant with it, and moreover how to achieve it and why we would even want it?
The most known and sort of "official" definition says it's "development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the abiliy of future generations to meet their needs". Lot's of broad words, isn't it?
In the survey made in autumn among AEGEE members, we asked the people to define it in their own words. And here's what came out.
Almost half of the answers mentioned that sustainable development is something keeping in mind the future generations, around 1/3 mentioned that it's mainly to protect and safeguard the environment. The 2 other sustainable development pillars (the concept consists of 3 pillars: environment, economy and society) were mentioned less: around 20% put the focus on economical development, and 15% to social welfare.
"Managing the resources" was also the keywords mentioned quite often, whether they were meant as natural resources or some other resources. As activity, desides using the word "development", respondents mentioned "efficient" or "rational resource use", "improvement of life quality" and few times also "technology". What could be also brought out is that the need to sutain our planet, world was mentioned more times than the needs and benefits to human race.
Of course there are always some more creative ways to define "sustainable development" like: "living without messing up the world too much" :)

What can be concluded based on this question? That in general, young people do have some overview what this concept means, the need to preserve our world for future generations and environmental protection as key activity seem to be the most important parts of it.

For those, wanting to read more about sustainable development definitions, click here. Also, a sort of speculation of the "official" definition can be found here.
Give your thoughts: how do you see sustainable development? Is it actually something we should strive for? How far can we actually develop?

European Day of Environment

2009-05-03T20:48:00.006+02:00

Ready for next activity by the flagship project "Sustaining our Future"?

Want to be part of the SuFu Panda team?

Do you think that 5th of June is just an ordinary day?
Yes?
Hmm, you`re wrong!
Actually, it is a very special day – World Environment Day!

We would like all AEGEE antennae to Take Action in the week around this special date.

Let`s discover and improve our environment … You don`t know how to do it???

Here`s a list with ideas for EDE activities.

And sample Environmental Actions that you can use.

To show you that is really not difficult, we have also brought out 15 steps how to organize EDE.

WE – YOUNG PEOPLE CAN TAKE A LEAD IN PRESERVING OUR COMMON FUTURE, so stop for a moment and watch the following video.

We hope your antenna will be enthusiast to cooperate with us in 2009 –

we have some surprises for those who will participate :)

CONTACT: If you want to apply with your local for the organization of an event in this frame or if you are just interested and want to get more information please write to Olga Daskali: olga.aegee@gmail.com.

Deadline of expressing your interest and sending plans of your event is 20th of May 2009!

You can always turn to SuFu team for help!

Big Fun + Hard Work + Nice Island = Magusa!!

2009-04-24T15:49:00.007+02:00

SuFu Team is back from Magusa!! What a wonderful and exciting Agora we had, with nerves, a true presidental election for first time in years, the Agora expressing its opinion towards the CD work adn some other issues... If you were not there, you missed something great! SuFu Panda tried to keep people updated at the live agora website (thanks Chair Team for trying hard to make it real).

There was a nice workshop organized by SuFu, where our Danube girls presented the initiative. It was due to rush of plennary that workshops were not properly presented in front of all the delegates, so we didn't get as many interested people as we would have liked to. Be we had quality instead of quantity! They were participative and creative, and developed the project with their contribution. We want to thank all of them and hope to see YOU in one of our events (or in both!).

Other interesting things:

The Finding Sustainland SU from AEGEE Ankara was actively promoted by their organizing team, and it looks really great!
We have chosen a new flagship Topic, Beyond Europe, to be developed soon into a concrete project. I want to encourage the proposers to be ambitious, idealistic, positive and... good luck!!
Logistically it was again a perfect event, thanks to hard work from AEGEE-Magusa people, and the support of Near East University. Good food, big parties, and the AEGEE neighbourhood (a different kind of hosting. I just think that the people from Magusa should learn how to wake up people). Happy 10th, AEGEE-Magusa!! The cake was great!
People from Kyiv were already doing some FR for their univeristy with nice calendars. With each one you could also ask for a wish: mine was to see Dragan dressed up as SuFu Panda in Agora Kyiv, and I bought 5 calendars to increase my chances - the nice pictures of Kyiv girls had nothing to do, for sure :) . If you have an opportunity to ask for wishes, think about it... It could be so much fun! (Sorry Dragan if you read this)

That is all for now, from Morocco, the SuFu Panda.

PS: While we wait for more pics from our workshop, I borrowed some pics from Facebook, "thanks" to their owners for their understanding :)

makeITfair Amsterdam Youth Roundtable ‘09

2009-04-11T00:25:00.031+02:00

I have recently represented SuFu and AEGEE at the makeITfair Youth Round Table in Amsterdam, an event organized by SOMO Netherlands, Dutch National Youth Council and “ Morgen” (the national student network of the Netherlands on Sustainable Development).

One general focus of the round table was to actively involve youth organizations in spreading the word on better working conditions & sustainable environmental impact of electronic industry.

As a campaign, makeITfair lobbies among big brand companies through meetings, round tables, policy statements and issues papers commenting on their current activities. On the other hand, use is made of support of international trade unions federations and local trade unions, consumers organizations or civil society organizations in many countries. More info on makeITfair you can find here: http://makeitfair.org/

Over the 3 days of round table we became familiar with the issues within the electronic industry, especially mobile phone manufacturing, and worked together on finding specific solutions to ensure the sustainability of IT.

The round table discussions focused on the economic, social and environmental problems of the electronics supply chain. Further plans of collaboration between makeITfair and the youth organizations were discussed.

We were also given the opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the industry, workers organizations from the South as well as with lobby organizations.

We were thirty youth representatives from organizations all around Europe, from countries like Germany, Finland, Denmark, Slovakia, Latvia, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Sweden, UK, Poland.

Despite the somewhat limited time dedicated to networking (since the round table discussions were really intense) I managed to spend a lot of time promoting AEGEE and SuFu and I established contacts which I am sure could bevaluable for our next events. I was really happy to meet among the participants people who were already familiar with AEGEE,and who were even members of AEGEE too.

Already some people have expressed interest to promote AEGEE and cooperate with us in future events! Not so bad for such a short time alotted to knowing the fellow associations, really!

You can find some nice videos taken during the event here and here

Enjoy!

Great week with SuFu in Copenhagen

2009-04-05T22:29:00.011+02:00

Today morning was the last time, when participants of "Sustainable SCANdinavia" gathered together in the hostel common room in Copenhagen, to look back to this great week and see what they had learned.
It both seems like ages ago and like yesterday at the same time, when participants were welcomed in the hostel, where they also got their own personal mug, that was used during the whole week (no plastic cups were used during this event).

It was nice to see people using their SuFu mugs everywhere. Hopefully they will be also used in future events :P

Copenhagen has many sustainability practices to show: everyone knows about the big amount of bicycles in the city, in fact the city hall representative, who gave us open speech for the whole week, also arrived on a bike. Alternative community Christiania represents it's own version of sustainability, where we had guided tour.

Another aspect came with the visit to waste management center: Danes seem to have recycling in their blood and public recycling centers are used often.
It is also no problem to find organic food in Denmark, even visiting a most common supermarket, the organisers could find enough products to make almost totally organic dinner for all the participants. On the last evening we even got the chance to dine in a 100% organic restaurant, where everything from the clothes of the cooks to the drinks in the bar was organic. Plus the meals, that were made right in front of the customers in the open kitchen.

It was great to spend this week with so nice participants, who really made the event come alive. Besides the crazy parties, participants still managed to wake up every morning on time (big thanks to our wake up responsible Miguel!) and stayed energetic during all the days (thanks to Percin for all the energizers!). Also weather seemed to like us, as on the last days some people even managed to get small sunburn.

The concrete results of the "Sustainable SCANdinavia" are probably still to come. Many nice ideas were created for next possible events, and if we are lucky, we might even have 2nd Scandinavian sustainability lesson still this year in Sweden.

Finally I would like to thank Karmen from Ljubljana, who was one of our trainers and AEGEE-Copenhagen guys, for arranging us probably the most delicious dinners in the history of AEGEE events and showing us the Copenhagen nightlife! My last thanks go to Katrin and Dragana, who were the managers for this project and worked on it for many months. Well done, girls!

Think Tank - small update

2009-03-28T18:55:00.029+01:00

And we owe you a post about how the Think Tank went. I can be short about it: The think tank was great! Around 50 participants from 11 countries took part: The Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Italy, Bulgaria, Serbia, Turkey, Greece, Rumania, Germany and Russia. The first day we visited the European Renewable Energy House, where we had a great tour along all energy saving measures, a lobby tour through Brussels by Corporate Europe and workshops in the CD house. The second day we had the Think Tank itself: 6 hours to define an answer to a question by one of our partners. And the last day we went to discover Brussels.

Our participants were very nice! Besides being eager for information and working hard to finish the answer paper in time, as organisers we als had great fun with Greek participants feeding us chocolate, Serbians bringing their rakia in the evening, Diego helping out where-ever he could, and some knew the center of Brussels even better than the organisers. There is no space to mention all. For the organisers it was just great to see this enthousiasm, it was the best reward for the efforts they had taken to organise.

And the content was great! All groups made their best of the questions asked to them, and the jury had the difficult task to pick the best from them. The winner was Team Adioma, the group with members of AEGEE-Brussels and AEGEE-Leuven. Congratulations to Ioana, Marieke, Mathias and Adeline, they proved not to let the heavy international participant group scare them, and took a home victory. The second place was shared by two teams: M.T.E.D. (Mediterranean Team for Energy and Development - a team with Greek and Turkish members) and Can7ina (with participants from Germany and The Netherlands).
For more impressions of the day, you can find the press release here and pictures here.

As an event like this is never organised without help, I'd also like to take this opportunity for thanking everyone who helped making this event such a great success! Percin, Robin, Kadri and Ana for helping out in the whole organisation, it couldn't have been done without you! Romain for helping out in PR, Diego too for his great help in doing PR, and for meeting the incoming participants. A big thank you to TUSIAD for organising the reception for us and to our partners for providing the questions - it would not have been possible without this input and help. Andrey Shadurskiy for sharing his pictures with us (picture 2 and 4 in this blog are his). And all the lodgers, speakers, workshop leaders, etc. for their support. And last but not least: all participants. You were great!!

Thursday, Friday & Saturday: Think Tank!

2009-03-16T13:01:00.006+01:00

Hi SuFu bloggies,

This Thursday, Friday and Saturday our think tank: "Create and In(ter)novate!" is going to take place in Brussels. As it is quite a busy period, this will be a short blog. But I will try to make it up to you by promissing to publish a long post about it afterwards (And some of you I might see there).

These days the last things are coming together: confirmations from speakers, jury members, trying to get some last discounts for the participants, arranging all the lodging, etc. But it is going to be nice, because at the end of the week the result will be:
The first ever pan-European youth Think Tank on mobility and energy.
It is going to be the first time to gather many young Europeans in this format, to really make and propose fresh and innovative solutions to existing problems in companies and organisations. Participants will meet other young students and young professionals from all over Europe, and can even earn 1000 Euro with using their creativity in a useful way. And to top it all off the think tank will be closed with a very nice and luxury reception in Brussels at TUSIAD, the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association, who are so kind to host this for us.
If you are interested: there are still some places left for those who wish to participate!

For more information you can check our website.
And to apply click here
Participation is open to all European students and young professionals.

Hope to see you around at one of our activities!! (and why not this Think Tank ;-)

Martien

Team Update March

2009-03-06T13:58:00.005+01:00

Hello SuFu friends!!

This week I will write a team update, so you can have a general idea of what the SuFu team is dealing with at this moment. Most of us have exams at the moment, but that is not stopping SuFu!!

But before, I want to introduce you Milana, our new PR manager; she is from AEGEE-Ljublana, and joined our team with high motivation, bringing us more creativity and new inspiration. you can find a hint on her work at the SuFu newsletter of February.

Our manager, Kadri, keeps her busy coordinating the team, but had time to attend the Y-vote event in München to present SuFu there, together with Maria; they gave a workshop about Renewable Energies. Martien and Ana (Percin supporting them) work hard nowadays to make the Think Tank a event where creativity and ideas flourish. Katrin is in charge of the Sustainable SCANdinavia event in Copenhagen, while Dragana roams in Cambodian wilderness on a trip with her Faculty...

Tiit is getting ready to gather a group of experienced members to develop the concept of Sustainability Trainings. There will be a meeting soon, just stay tuned if you think you can contribute.

Georgios is waiting for these two events to be accomplished to start gathering results and evaluation. Olga is quite busy at her studies too, but she started gathering antennae that want to organize an event for the European Day of Environment. Will you be one of them? :)

Our Danube girls, Iulia and Flavia, mix exams with project coordination in perfect harmony, and we wish them good luck at both!

Miguel is still in his Moroccan mountains, trying to hunt leopards (with a camera), and working together with AEGEE-Madrid to prepare the application for the SuFu and the City event; this weekend Miguel will try to meet with Maria in Fez; after München, she is taking a break at her FR activities to do a work visit to Morocco. Let's see if communications and bad weather allow this meeting :)

As you see, busy time for the SuFu's... But we love it!

Warming up for Copenhagen

2009-03-01T19:02:00.008+01:00

Part of SuFu-Team met in Copenhage for some days (19th to 23rd Feb), to make last preparations for the first chapter in the Sustainable SCANdinavia series... It was Dragana and Katrin as main coordinators of the event, and Percin and Miguel (writing this) for collaboration. And the people from AEGEE-Copenhagen too, of course. Some other members were busy organizing the THINK TANK in Brussels, or participating at the Y-Vote event in München.

We fell in love with the city when we walked around visiting different locations that participants will enjoy; we discussed the programme and made some rearrangements; we had a look at some of the applications and got enthusiastic about the high level of them. We also made last agreements for the venue where the conferences will take place, and found a possible place for the opening; lastly we talked with people at the hostel. We (of course!) also took the pulse of Copenhagen nights, finding one or two places that we are sure our happy participants will love!

On personal level, it was my second time in the city and it snowed everyday, as the first time did. No matter what members of AEGEE-København tell about not snowing often in their city, if you are coming I advise you take warm clothes and good shoes! :)

PS: Pictures of people working are usually boring, so this time we show you some more interesting ones :)

Create and In(ter)notvate in Brussels!

2009-02-19T13:03:00.003+01:00

For SuFu the EBM went very well! SuFu panda was well received, and we managed to get quite some turnout for the workshop of SuFu and Maastricht Graduate school of Governance. You can read more here later.

Moreover, applications for the think tank in Brussels are going well, but there are still some places left. So there is still the possibility to apply..

Join the AEGEE think tank!

Creative. International. Interdisciplinary. Interactive. Innovation!

The ISSUE is real. Our partners are looking for a SOLUTION. The actual question remains SECRET till the day. The PRIZE is 1000 Euro.

Have you always wanted to see if your brain is worth money?
We organise the 1st pan-European Youth Think Tank on mobility and energy, from 19 to 21 March in Brussels.

Outline of the Think Tank:
Participants will be given a real issue put forward by our business and institution partners, relating to sustainability, mobility and energy. In groups of five they will develop a fresh and innovative solution, using their creative problem solving skills.

The moment this issue is on the table, there are 6 hours to find a solution. All the necessary equipments will be available: Internet, your own network, assistance from AEGEE-Europe and our partner companies. General knowledge is important, yet something more is needed:

CREATIVITY.

If you think you can push your ideas and create innovative solutions to the challenges offered during the day and if you believe your ideas might be worth 1000 Euro, then you are invited to this event.

This is your chance to show that your ideas are worth gold!

Participation is open to all students and young professionals.

Will you be the team that takes back home 1000 Euro? Will your ideas be implemented by top companies in Europe?

Find more information at: http://www.projects.aegee.org/sustaining/index.php?id=thinktank
You can apply via: http://www.karl.aegee.org/calendar.nsf/ID/CHL0903CRE!?Open
DEADLINE is Tuesday 24th February

CU in Brussels!

SuFu Panda getting ready for EBM

2009-02-08T15:44:00.005+01:00

As all AEGEE members know, next weekend will be our European Boards Meeting in Torino. And yes, SuFu Panda will be also there :)
So, those of you going there, you will be lucky first ones to see our mascotte Panda in public.
Of course, in EBM you will also have the chance to get to know more about our upcoming activities, of which to think tank and Scandinavia visit we have already open applications (go check: http://www.aegee.org/events).
You can meet SuFu team in Roundtable Discussions, in AEGEE cafe and also in workshop, that we will share with one of our partners. So will get the chance to hear also, why and how people are dealing with sustainability outside AEGEE.
And of course, we will have some surprises ;)

Hope to meet and talk to many of you in Torino next week!

The (biggest) environmental problem in Europe?

2009-01-29T00:09:00.006+01:00

This was the question asked to AEGEE members in autumn 2008, during a survey about the ecological awareness of young Europeans. Now the time has come to start analysing the responses. And here I would like to list the problems that AEGEE'ans consider the most important ones in Europe nowadays.
Out of 145 respondents, there were over 40 different problems mentioned. That shows that indeed we have a lot of things to take care of. Compiling them into topics, here you can see the Top 10:

1) air pollution and greenhouse gases
2) unsustainable production and use of energy, fossil fuels
3) water problems (pollution, shortage of drinking water)
4) unsustainable transport, too many cars
5) waste problems and lack of recycling
6) over consumption and production, using too much resources
7) global warming and climate change
8) pollution generally
9) deforestration, unsustainable use of forests
10) lack of political will and international cooperation to make changes

Other problems mentioned were: nuclear pollution, people's awareness and attitude, problems connected to industries, agricultural production, consuming too much meat and fish, increasing poverty, pollution from cities, etc.

There was no big domination of one opinion (the no 1 problem was mentioned by around 12% of respondents), but it can be seen that many of the listed problems are more or less connected to climate change. This reminds me the poll made by EU in September 2008 showing also that Europeans worry a lot about climate change, BUT most of them are not willing to do much about it. What about us, the youth, AEGEE?

About the survey: The whole survey consisted of questions generally about sustainable development and about consumption patterns. It will be basis for a Master thesis and the overall final results will be published in summer 2009.

SuFu Newsletter Issue No 1!

2009-01-21T20:22:00.005+01:00

Hello network!

Issue no 1 of SuFu newsletter is online and ready for you :D We are more than happy to share you the news and updates of AEGEE's Flagship Project, and we really have a lot to share :D Just click on the link below to download

http://www.karl.aegee.org/aeg-publ.NSF/b7ea9fd753811f3ac12564640017556f/90241bfb7c7ea4dcc1257543003b0d95/$FILE/SuFu%20Newsletter%20January09.pdf

Beautiful Messolonghi....such a nice place for a fruitful team meeting.... :D

Read it to learn about Messolonghi team meeting, about Think Tank, Sustainable SCANdinavia, Danube-Let it flow!, EDE, SuFu Panda, everything you have heard somewhere, you have read on a facebook status message, somebody told you on an AEGEE night and you want to know more about!

BIG.NEW.GREEN.YOU Greetings from SuFu Zoo!

SUFU on Facebook

2009-01-16T11:00:00.006+01:00

Dear SUFU fans,

Recently Facebook group "Sustaining our Future 2009" was created. In 24 hours we managed to have 224 members, and this number is increasing constantly. If you are not there yet, please do not hesitate any more, support our project and JOIN NOW :)

Sustainably yours,
Dragana

Granted YiA for SCANdinavia project

2009-01-09T09:05:00.008+01:00

Just after SUFU meeting in Messolonghi, I received e-mail from Danish National Agency that our application for Scandinavia project is approved!

That means that 35 AEGEE members from all over the network will be hosted by AEGEE Copenhagen from 30th March to 5th April 2009. They will have chance to discover, learn, discuss and practice through many various activities on the hottest topic nowadays - Sustainable development . They will meet Scandinavian top experts dealing with sustainable development, renewable energy and sustainable lifestyles, and visit the most successful enviroment responsible companies in Denmark, from recycling centre to organic farms, wind energy parks, etc...

But we will not reveal everything now, just keep in mind that this will be the event with totally innovative concept to AEGEE. And not to mentioned that it will be the most ambitious Scandinavian project in history of AEGEE.

So, be prepared, after a long time AEGEE Copenhagen is back on the track together with SUFU .

Stay tooned, more information about event and application procedure will follow soon.

BIG.NEW.GREEN.YOU greetings :)

Hard-working in Messologgi

2008-12-30T17:22:00.004+01:00

Here we are, some active AEGEE members from quite a lot of locals and countries, gathered all around the SuFu Project (Sustaining our Future if you don't know it yet) to make this project successful in its most important year, 2009.

During next year we will be busy almost every month with different events and activities. In February we will have the EBM; in March we have the innovative Think Tank near Brussels; in April and May we have Agora in Magusa, and the SCANdinavia Study Trip. June is the month of the European Day of Environment; and so on... Next entries of the blog will explain these actions in detail, come back to get more information.

During these days we are really enjoying Greek hospitality, indulging ourselves in copious and delicious meals, stealing a glance at the sea from the window of the room while we work, discovering the surprising nighlife of a small city. We are taking advantage of this opportunity to develop our team, knowing each other better and learning to work together in a coordinated way.

Being part of a European Project is an enriching experience; even if it consumes a considerable amount of time, it pays back well!

Looking forward to meet in Greece

2008-12-21T20:42:00.003+01:00

I am really happy that once that I have gone through some days of family, mountains of food and several kilometers and means of transport, I will be one more year able to spend my New Year Eve (and surrounding days) working for AEGEE and more specially, the Environmental side of AEGEE.

In 2006 I was there when the EnWG seed was planted. In 2007 we developed the basics of the Flagship Project into a program that is able to generate movement inside our network.

Once again, here I am ready to meet old friends, make new ones, discover how they spend these days in Greece, what their traditions are, and some surprises that always await around the corner when you travel abroad.

Some people say, concerned, that Greece is not a safe place to visit in these days; but I am one of that people thinking that the best way to regain normality is acting normally. I will act carefully but I will not allow some vandals to ruin my visit to one country that has always been in my list "to come back" since I visited it when I was 11.

Barcelona congress - networking, and more networking

2008-10-27T00:39:00.007+01:00

So what did me and Miguel actually do in Barcelona besides breathing all the possible info connected to sustainable development?

Our big day was October 7th – this is when we had our knowledge cafe named „Sustaining our Future – shaping the role of youth in Europe“. It was 1,5 h long session in a big room (with around 10 similar sessions at the same time). It’s actually unbelievable, that we applied to hold this event more than a year ago – in July 2007. Finally we were there, and we could see that the effort had been worth it – all the interested people couldn’t fit behind the table and had to take extra chairs. Everyone was listening to us carefully and asking a lot of questions; not only about SuFu, but also generally about AEGEE – how we communicate in such a big organisation, what activities do we have, how do we get our new members etc. Also, of course, we were congratulated by the initiative of trying to tackle sustainable development. Young people are big interest for the nature conservation sector – that showed also from many other sessions that we attended. For example, International Institute for Sustainable Development was rather interested in cooperation with Youth NGO’s, especially in trainings, as they put big emphasis on empowering future sustainability leaders.

The congress organisers also made an effort to target youth especially: there was a specific section in the congress webpage, and also they arranged a nice gathering on a boat in Barcelona harbour. It was a nice opportunity to meet people who organised sessions for youth during the congress. It was quite charming to meet by the sea, under evening sun, sip some wine, eat chocolate and chat with people from World Business Council for Sustainable Development for example. This organisation was btw, one the biggest congress partners. Besides having big pavillion with a lot of information, and sevaral sessions on concrete topics, they also organised Business Night Schools, where business and nature conservation representatives could meet and learn how they can cooperate together. It was there where we had the chance to talk a bit with representatives of some quite known companies. Who knows, we just might become partners as well - you will hear more about it then ;)

Of course, I also had small meeting with the representative of Countdown 2010 initiative, with whom AEGEE is an official partner since June 2008 – it’s a global action to stop the loss of biodiversity. We had nice evening chat about concrete ways to cooperate – I can just say that future European Day of Environment organisers can be happy ;)

All in all, the congress was just a perfect place to connect ourselves into the world of sustainable development and make ourselves seen. If you are interested to know more, read our congress report and/or summary of the knowledge cafe or just contact me or Miguel by mail. And please leave a comment here on the blog to INTERACT!!!

SuFu in IUCN congress in Barcelona

2008-10-17T17:00:00.009+02:00

From 5th to 9th of October, me and Miguel spent in 4th World Conservation Congress in Barcelona. The main organiser was IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), who is also SuFu's partner. Just like IUCN is one of the oldest and most important conservation networks in the world, is the congress one of the most important gathering in nature conservation and sustainability issues. It is held in every 4 years and offers the place for people from NGOs, businesses, academia from all the continents to network, share ideas, build partnerships, learn new things, etc.
The event was simply huge! 5 days, 7800 participants, over 800 different events - how many agorae would that make :P? And the diversity among these participants, types of events, tackled topics was also huge. I had the chance for example to meet with people from Costa Rica, India, South Africa, Japan - and they were all very interested in AEGEE as well actually :P I attended sessions about urban biodiversity, business tools for ecosystem assessment, the state of world's languages, youth's role in building sustainable future etc.
More info what contacts we made for SuFu and AEGEE, will follow soon. But here's few pictures from the event, as appetiser :)

The first words of SuFuBlog

2008-10-15T11:31:00.000+02:00

Hello all

This is the first post in the blog for the Flagship Project of AEGEE 2008-09.

We are a motivated group of members of AEGEE. AEGEE is the biggest multidisciplinar student association in Europe. Some months ago we started a big project called Sustaining Our Future. We want to make information on Sustainable Development available to European Youth, for them to be able to take responsible decissions. We are aware that there is lack of knowledge on the field even though the topic is on everyday news, on political agendas and in discussions among friends.