Interview with Mario Giuseppe Varrenti (AEGEE)
Posted 1:46 PM by Internal Voices in Labels: 11th edition
Petra Vallila, UNRIC Brussels
AEGEE launched in 2009 a one year project called “Beyond Europe – Perspectives for Tomorrow’s World”. It involved two case study trips, one to India in June-July 2010 and one to South Africa in September. The project involved almost a hundred young participants and it reached out to even more people during the case study trips. The participants were divided into eight groups, which focused on one Millennium Development Goal (MDG) each. The groups were involved in workshops and projects that ranged from raising awareness on the MDGs, for instance presentations or drawing competitions for young kids; to visits with NGOs and development agencies to understand the challenge of poverty in its many dimensions and the measures taken to tackle it.
What triggered AEGEE initially to launch the project?
“The project was aimed at establishing, on a micro level, the global partnership for development that the MDGs aim to achieve. I learned that in 2009 only 5% of young people in the EU knew about the MDGs – that is nine years after the launch of the goals! Increasing the awareness amongst young Europeans was actually the initial idea behind our project”
So why is it so important to have the youth involved in the work to reach the MDGs by 2015?
“Well, in countries like India and South Africa it is first of all a matter of numbers, young people are actually a very large part of the population, but this is not all. Young people are also more innovative, more open, more interconnected than the older generations. The power of interconnectedness between young people can change the world for the better!”
Looking back on the project, would you consider it to have been a success? “As for every project, I consider it successful if its outcomes are sustainable and its impact long-lasting. With this project, we invested a lot in the people directly involved in it, those young Europeans, Indians and South Africans who came together four times in one year. We have provided these people with a fertile ground to develop new ideas and work together in the future. They have had the chance to see first hand what poverty means to the lives of many in the developing world, to go beyond just numbers and figures, they have been asking themselves questions. Why in the Don Bosco Institute in Nakurot, India, are there every year more kids who drop out of school than kids who enrol? Why do parents in some villages of Bihar in India refuse to vaccine their children? How can there be in the same city, Cape Town, a primary school charging a fee of 100 Rands a year and one charging 4000 Rands a month? How likely is it for a student from the first school to study one day at university compared to a student from the second school? The project might not have provided an answer to all these questions, but it has definitely challenged the way its participants used to look at these issues before, and it has opened up their minds and offered them the tools to become effective multipliers and make a little difference, every day, for a fairer and better world.
AEGEE (Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de l’Europe / European Students’ Forum) is a student organisation that promotes co-operation, communication and integration among young people in Europe. AEGEE counts as its most well-known achievements the establishment of the Erasmus Programme and the Summer University. AEGEE has participatory status in the activities of the Council of Europe, consultative status at the United Nations, operational status at UNESCO and is at the same time a member of the European Youth Forum.
Info : beyondeurope@gmail.com
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