After Italy and Portugal, now it’s Germany: for the third time in this programme phase of Generation Europe – The Academy, the local groups from Bochum, Rome and Évora have met for an international youth encounter. This year’s meeting took place in the centre of the Ruhr region in Germany. The young people documented their experiences in their own Encounter Newspaper. We are very happy to republish their report online.
What is Generation Europe – The Academy?
Generation Europe was established in 2018. It started with ten partnerships, and is now in 2024, is made of 14 partnerships. It is a project founded by the German organisation IBB (Internationales Bildungs- und Begegnungswerk). Because of this, Germany is present in all the different partnerships along with 13 other countries.
Generation Europe was created with the purpose of connecting young people from different European countries, with the intention of challenging and inspiring participants to be active European citizens, creating a platform that allows us to discuss and resolve current problems in local communities.
Our Partnership
We are Partnership 1, between Bochum (Germany), Rome (Italy) and Évora (Portugal). At the moment we are in the 7th year of the project, doing a youth encounter in Essen and Bochum, to be able to connect these three different countries, and work to pursue the same goals.
Youth Encounter in Essen
In Essen we stayed at a country house and initiated this year’s project by doing some activities. One of the most important games was called Youtopia, a role play that is meant to make the participants reflect about the current society and political system as well as continue to develop our work as a team.
In the role playing game Youtopia the participants were able to gain new experiences. What is needed to built up a new settlement in the context of different nations with different political systems? What is your engagement and commitment? Do you feel responsible, for example for the use of time and ressources? What is difficult when people from different nations want to work together? It’s all about communication, participation, understanding and cooperation.
- Every role was needed in the game, every person is needed in this project.
- Everybody can bring something to built a better world, to built the best home for everybody.
We were also divided by groups according to our personal interest, to do some workshops to publicise our project, for example a video about our stay in Germany, and a graffiti so we can also reach the younger generation.
We also continue to work in our topic groups with the intention to connect the three countries. We have been working on them throughout the years. This year we decided to continue to work in these topics, because we found that these are problems very present in our current society. The topics are: Migration and Immigration, Sustainability, Violence and Gender equality and Opportunities for the young.
Youth Encounter in Bochum
After our six days stay in Essen we went to Bochum, to work on topics more related to the community. Here we first got to know the city and the youth center Falkenheim Akademiestraße, where we worked throughout the days and where we will have our final event.
We also had the opportunity to tour the city hall of Bochum and get to know the history of the city. After the tour we met Lisa Methling, the speaker of the lord mayor of Bochum for political network and international affairs, who told us more about the European international affairs in Bochum and also the achievements of the city. With this visit we had the possibility to get an insight of the networks of Bochum besides Generation Europe.
On the 16th of August we were in the Kinderstadt, the Children City in Bochum Gerthe. There we had the opportunity to join this annual event where the children were able to create their own community and elect a mayor. They could work in different places, learn new skills and new types of jobs. During the event some of us made a graffito, previously decided in one of the workshops to promote our project.
We also met workers from different youth centers in Bochum as well as the head of the youth welfare office of Bochum, and had the opportunity of talking to them about their work. We asked a lot of the workers from the youth centers about their opinion on Kinderstadt and one of the best answers we got was: “It’s a very nice experience for the kids, because they learn to do things they didn’t know they could do.” This is a very good point of view, because kids and young adults can do a lot more then what they think is possible.
Final Event
At the moment we are preparing for the final event, one of the most important parts of this encounter, because it allows us to share the work we have been doing during this year and demonstrate the importance it has in our countries. We have been working in our topic groups and the main point of that is to showcase our final event what we want to change or improve.
What Others Write About this Youth Encounter:
- Junge Menschen präsentieren trilaterale Lösungen: Generation Europe in der KGI-Kommune Bochum
ijab.de, 21.08.24 | German, Article
Workshops gestalten, in der großen Öffentlichkeit Aktionen umsetzen, Podcasts einsprechen und Netzwerke bilden: 42 junge Menschen aus Évora, Rom und Bochum stellten am 18. August in Bochum nach drei Jahren Zusammenarbeit eindrucksvoll unter Beweis, wie effektiv gut geförderte, grenzüberschreitende Zusammenarbeit junger Menschen Lösungen zu gesellschaftlichen Herausforderungen hervorbringen kann. Im Rahmen von Generation Europe – The Academy – einer Plattform, die ihnen das IBB Dortmund und mehrere Förderer zur Verfügung stellten – hatten sich die jungen Menschen bereits 2022 zum ersten Mal zusammengefunden.- Kinder an der Macht: Eine aufregende Woche in der Bochumer Kinderstadt
lokalkompass.de, 16.08.24 | German, Article
Das beliebte Ferienprogramm fand bereits zum vierten Mal statt – ermöglicht durch zahlreiche Mitwirkende wie der Sparkasse Bochum, Lebenshilfe Bochum, Vonovia, Polizei Bochum, dem Deutschen Roten Kreuz, dem VfL Bochum, dem Internationalen Bildungswerk Bochum, der juggling school und Generation Europe.
Download the Encounter Newspapers:
