Newsletter

BE RURAL, BELIEVE IN YOU(TH), CREATE THE EUROPE OF TOMORROW!
Issue 2
MIJARC Europe
March 2012
 MIJARC EUROPE NEWS
Newsletter
MIJARC Europe Lobbying…
Following the wishes of MIJARC Europe member movements, MIJARC Europe is making
all the possible efforts to be more and more involved in lobby work, making our organisation
and its ideas more visible towards the higher decision-making structures.
…towards the Council of Europe:
On the European Youth Forum Council of Members (COMEM) held in Braga, on the 18th
and 19th of November 2011, Jürgen Westermann, former treasurer of MIJARC Europe, was
elected for a 2-years mandate as member of the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of
Europe.
This group is made up of 30 representatives of youth NGO’s
and networks who provide opinions and input on all youth
sector activities. It also ensures that young people are involved
in other activities of the Council of Europe.
The first meeting of the Advisory Council (AC) will be held in
Budapest from the 28th to 30th March 2012.
Meanwhile, Jürgen already participated in two trainings, one
provided by the European Youth Forum, in Brussels and
another one provided by the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg.
From his report to the European Team we would like to quote:
“In general I can say that at the moment it has the charm at the beginning of a new task, we
didn’t really start with the work nor do we (or at least not all of us) concretely know how the
wind blows but we are all very motivated and enthusiastic.”
…towards the European Commission:
The Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) set up a call for
NGO’s active in the field of trade and development in relation to Agriculture, in order to
participate in the CAP “Advisory Group on International Aspects of Agriculture”, which is
consulted by the Commission. MIJARC Europe applied and it was selected to have an
observer member in this group.
Klaus Settele, our European Coordinator from KLJB (Germany), accepted the role of being
the observerrepresenting MIJARC Europe in this Advisory Group.
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March 2012
MIJARC Europe
Newsletter
The first meeting has just occurred, on the 12th March,
intending to provide a platform for discussion on
international aspects of Agriculture and to allow
stakeholders to channel their views on the issue. In the
agenda were included the follow-up of the 8th Ministerial of
the World Trade Organisation (WTO), information about the
Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Ukraine, Mercosur,
Canada and India, the agricultural aspects of the Russia’s
accession to the WTO and discussion about the Policy
Coherence for Development.
We plan to keep you updated on these and other lobby actions by MIJARC Europe in our
next Newsletters
Evaluation of joint seminar with RYE
Yordanka Petrova, the Secretariat staff of MIJARC
Europe, attended the evaluation event of Youth
Employment Action project, organized by Rural Youth
Europe from 5th till 10th March 2012 in Janeda, Estonia.
It is a long-term project with series of youth exchanges,
trainings and seminars. The joint seminar with Rural
Youth Europe “Spice up your community”, which held
from 18th till 25th September 2011 in Mollina, Spain,
was one of this events. During the week full of
activities, different workshops, field visits and games
the participants evaluated what they learnt from this seminar and how they used the new skills
for themselves, for their organization and for their community. The feedback was quite positive
and all agreed that it was useful for them to participate.
Not only the past but the future activities were
also put on the agenda. It was decided to keep the
good partnership between MIJARC Europe and
RYE and to think about another joint activity in
the future.
Yordanka Petrova
MIJARC Europe Staff
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!
Issue 2
MIJARC Europe
March 2012
Newsletter
MIJARC Looks to the East
In the middle of March representatives of
MIJARC Europe (Lyubomir Todorov,
Vice-President and Florian Aurbacher,
Treasurer) travelled to Romania in order
to meet our partners from “Association
Assistance and Programs for Sustainable
Development – Agenda 21” (APSD –
Agenda 21).
Our organizations have been in contact
since more than a year, actively
exchanging e-mails and cooperating in
various
international
projects
and
initiatives. With regard to this, the European Team of MIJARC Europe initiated a meeting in
Romania aiming at fostering the partnership and discussing from a long-term perspective the
role of APSD- Agenda 21 in the structures of MIJARC.
Our representatives had the chance to meet Nina Cugler (Executive President) and Florina
Pavel (Project Coordinator) and learn more about the aims, structure and way of working of
their organization. Realizing the obvious similarities between MIJARC and APSD- Agenda 21,
as well as taking into account the successful partnership that has been build throughout the
year, their integration within the structures of MIJARC was put on the focus of the discussions.
As a result of this meeting, it could be pointed out that the cooperation between the two
movements will be strengthened and potentially in the long-run lead to fully integrating APSDAgenda 21 in MIJARC Europe.
Lyubomir Todorov
Vice-President
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MIJARC Europe
March 2012
Newsletter
 EUROPE NEWS
Young people must take an active part in society!
Young people are our future. That is why their active citizenship is on the agenda at a
major EU youth conference in Denmark 18 – 21 March 2012
From 18 to 21 March, young people around Europe will use their voice and power of policy
influence in Sorø, Denmark at the EU Youth Conference. This event is organised by the Danish
Presidency along with the support of the European Youth Forum, and is the second Youth
Conference in the current 18-month cycle of the structured dialogue. It will ensure a closer
dialogue between the European Commission and the young people.
Representatives of Youth Ministries from EU Member States will gather to discuss the overall
thematic priority of youth participation, with creativity and innovation as the specific priority of
this conference.
The official opening on 19th March 2012 will be attended by the Danish Minister for Children
and Education, Christine Antorini, EU-Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou, President of
European Youth Forum, Peter Matjasic and Signe Bo from The Danish Youth Council.
For more info on the structured dialogue and the EU Youth Conference, click here!
Promotion of social entrepreneurship
European Commission launched a call for applications
with a view to setting up a group of experts on social
entrepreneurship as announced in the Commission's
Social Business Initiative. The main task of the expert
group will be to follow up the implementation of the
initiative.
Social enterprises, with their strong social, societal, environmental objective are also active in
the youth field. They often have an innovative nature, through the goods or services they offer
and through the organisation or production methods they resort to. They often employ society’s
most fragile members thus contributing to social cohesion, employment and the reduction of
inequalities.
Applications should be submitted by 9 April 2012.
More information : Call for applications
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MIJARC Europe
March 2012
Newsletter
 MOVEMENTS NEWS
10th Reflection Meeting of Catholic Action Youth Movements in Spain
Sixty-two young people from the diocese of
Placencia (Spain) belonging to the Catholic Action
Movements MJRC, JEC (Young Catholic Students)
and JOC (Young Catholic Workers) got together
on the 10th March in Huertas de Ánimas (Cáceres,
Spain) to reflect on their Christian presence in the
current social and economic surrounding situation.
The result of this reflection meeting was a manifest
agreed by all the participants as a commitment not
to stand still before this reality, to report what
seems to be away from the Kingdom of God and to feel the hope that things must and can
change.
Despite the discouraging reality, signs of hope
could be found: that this crisis can be a way to
realise that the laws of the markets so unfair to
the weakest as us, the young people, have to
change; that our Christian faith lead us to affirm
that the human being is the centre of the
economic and working life, guided by “a
friendly ethics of the person” (Benedict XVI,
Carit. In Veritate 45); and that we see more and
more young people involved, committed and
ready to fight in their environments, exposing
values of solidarity that we thought forgotten.
MJRC, Spain
(You can read the full article in our next issue of Info Europe magazine)
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Issue 2
MIJARC Europe
March 2012
Newsletter
Take my hand!
Dear Friends from MIJARC Europe,
We are really glad to inform you that YMDRAB Bulgaria has started the implementation of
project “Take my hand!”. This project is being implemented with financial support from Council
of Europe by the European Youth Foundation. It is a national training course for prevention and
non-violent transformation of interethnic conflicts between young Roma and Bulgarian people
from rural areas in Bulgaria. With this initiative we aim to encourage the rural youth from these
two so different ethnic groups to find ways to overcome and transform interethnic conflicts
between them in a peaceful way and to increase their mutual tolerance.
The training course will take place from 6th to 13th
of April, 2012 in the beautiful mountain town of
Velingrad. The participants will be 20 rural
youngsters – equal number Bulgarian and Roma
people. During the training they will share and
analyse different types of conflicts and will identify
the reasons for interethnic tensions in the Bulgarian
villages. They will learn how to avoid automatic
thoughts and misconceptions through active
interethnic communication and cultural exchange.
The participants will improve their competences for
non-violent conflict transformation, by using
concepts such as identity, cultural and intercultural sensitivity, social rights and responsibilities.
Moreover they will generate ideas to decrease the level of tensions between young Roma and
other youth and will identify ways to overcome the mutual social exclusion.
We are planning to introduce the results from our project at European level during the
International youth exchange "Let's Talk About Diversity!" organised within MIJARC's
network. YMDRAB will be hosting organisation of this event and it will take place also in
Velingrad in August 2012. Furthermore we are going to propose development of common
strategy for decreasing of discrimination of Roma young people in rural areas in Europe where
the results from our project should be also considered and reflected.
Expect some more news about the exciting training “Take my hand!”
Yonko Dodev
/Vice-President of YMDRAB/
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Issue 2
MIJARC Europe
March 2012
Newsletter
New National Board of the KLJB
At the national assembly of KLJB from
March 7th until 11th, the theologian
Daniel Steiger was elected as new member
of the national board. He will start his
work in April and will be responsible for
pastoral themes. Daniel worked for five
years at Pax Christi. Then he lived in
Bahia/Brazil for five years. Amongst other
things he established a coffee bar with an
in-house bakery there.
Wolfgang Ehrenlechner, member of the national board since 2007, was re-elected. He will be
responsible for environmental issues such as climate protection and energy turnaround for
sustainability.
Ute Ackermann
KLJB Germany
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