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

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

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

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...

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

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!

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

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 :-)