Call for the 41st YEU Convention – 2023 | Think DIGI – Embracing the digital age
YEU is opening the call for its 41st CONVENTION: the Convention will take place from the 13th to the 23th of September 2023 in Stratoni, Greece. The event will be organised in the framework of the European Year of Skills 2023 and be centered around the topic of digitalisation.
About the Event:
2023 has been announced as the European Year of Skills, which will in particular combine a focus on skills development to ensure that no one is left behind while it will also focus on making green and digital transitions socially fair and just. Within the Year of Skills, a special focus is given to young people who have been facing challenges in entering the labor market as well as those not in education, employment or training (NEET) to activate them for the labor market through matching of aspirations and skill sets with opportunities on the job market. In the light of the European Year of Skills, YEU has therefore dedicated its 41st Convention to the topic of digitalisation and digital skills – both essential for young people’s personal, social and professional development today.
The process aims at gathering organisations and young people coming from different and diverse contexts, EU, and non-EU, for the purpose of learning from each other, sharing information and practices but also contributing to the outcomes of the European Year of Skills with their own different realities. The organizations and young people will be able to give different perspectives while still having a high quality level of learning, discussions and sharing!
Objectives of the 41st Convention are:
- To gather young people from across and beyond Europe including young people from disadvantaged backgrounds;
- To providing an entry point for young people to YEU and provide first-time experiences in international mobility;
- To break down prejudices and stereotypes by fostering understanding, tolerance and intercultural learning across borders;
- To build on young people’s skills development to ensure that no one is left behind;
- To offer young people an opportunity to obtain concrete knowledge and skills on digitalisation as well as produce their own short videos, which will be edited into a longer video to be distributed across and beyond YEU Network to promote the YEU Convention among other non-organised young people around Europe.
The following activity is:
Activity: Think Digi – Embracing the digital age
Location: Stratoni, Greece (arrival in Thessaloniki)
Dates: 13th – 23rd of September, 2023 (Travel days included)
The History of YEU Convention:
The history began in 1980, when the non-formal Catholic group, from Germany, decided to make an international camp. The idea of the event had been waiting one year to come true in the Bavarian Alps, on the beautiful lake Koshelsee, during the summer of 1981. The participants were youth from Italy, Austria and Germany. The same group organized a camp next year in Schrottenbaummuhle, under the theme “Symbols in our lives”, with much more participants than before. And it started… After this event, the group decided to organize a very big camp, in the same place. This event was one of the main events which influenced the development of YEU the most. It was the first International Youth Convention in August of 1983.
The topics of the event were more than symbolic, “Borders between people and peoples”, like a symbol of exchanges between countries, especially between youth in Europe. The camp was divided into four villages and each camp village consisted of several sleeping tents and one larger meeting – tent. The number of participants is very hard to reconstruct, but it was between 120 and 140 youth all from Europe which were facilitated by twenty animators. For today’s conditions, it was a big event, hard to organize, especially if we know that communication and technology aspects were not developed like today.
The participants were thinking how borders can be less strong, and how to increase mobility of youth in Europe. The second Convention was about a way of doing that, through a culture of peace and understanding, later and these days it is still the base of YEU. Little sibling of YEU continued to grow up, and next, the bigger International Youth Convention, took part in the country in which participants were more active.
Till today, YEU baby has grown up into a responsible person, 41 years old, who is aware that modern society is not ideal, and that we have to work a lot, if we want a peaceful future society. “Nobody” must be past, because everybody has their own name, and the right to be different.
* YEU will take care of the transfer from Thessaloniki to Stratoni for all participants
**Accommodation and food are fully covered. Travel cost for the participants will be reimbursed fully of the total cost based on the set travel budget limit per country.
Please apply at this LINK not later than Monday, the 31th of July 2023, 11.59am (CET)
Preuzeo sa: YEU International