It seems like just yesterday, we finished our series of Conventions with our Final Conference. We have had eight events since November 2018, and it’s time to wrap-up and reflect.
Not so long ago I was merely an activist going out every sunday to participate in Pulse of Europe demonstrations, during that time I experienced unexpected frustration when looking at the average age of those who attended. One group somehow always failed to come in large numbers, and that group was the youth. Sure there were young people there but nowhere close to the amount there should have been.
Whilst I was still studying Political Sciences, when trying to convince some other students to participate, I mostly ended up in a pro-con ideological debate with students blindly following ideologies branding the EU as a behemoth of bureaucracy and inefficiency, as a slave of big business lobbies or as the main robber of personal freedoms. What my fellow students failed to understand is that the European Union can change for the better, but how can something change if no one goes out there to show support for the idea.
By joining the Y Vote Project team later on I was able to address this issue and this frustration I had with youth not speaking up when it came to the European Union. During all of our previous Conventions I was overwhelmed by the amount of extremely motivated, intelligent and talented young people who were ready to come together and discuss rather complicated issues and create the Recommendations.
Later on we ended up so close to the European elections for the final Convention in Torino with many great participants willing to share and discuss what others had prepared. They were there to follow that vision which we had planned since the start of this project: to show that young people can be informed, that they can come together, speak up and make tough decisions on what the European Union needs to do for the future of youth.
What a time we had! Thank you, to you, the participants, the local organisers, the numerous speakers and of course the whole of the project team.
See the whole result booklet!
