Three young volunteers from Sisak participated in the INTACT project Summer school held in Strasbourg 20-23 July 2001. The Summer school “Get involved. Participate for Europe and your Town”, gathered young volunteers from project partner countries: Croatia, France, Italy, Malta, the Republic of Macedonia and Romania.
After presentations, workshops and visits to different institutions, they left Strasbourg for their hometowns on Saturday – spreading the message of European cooperation to their communities. It familiarized the participants with the concepts of youth involvement and democracy on local and European level. Moreover, it also gave them the opportunity to learn about project management and creating youth participation projects themselves. Participants were actively involved in activities and discussions and it was their contribution that made the event a success.
Activities included presentations given by representatives of the Municipality of Strasbourg, the Council of Europe and the Director of the Association of Local Democracy Agencies. Working groups on European values and democratic principles were organised. The summer school was an important occasion to deepen these topics and share opinions. Although each participant expressed his or her own ideas, there was a common feeling about the most important values for the whole group. This agreement on basic principles can be considered a first achievement of building European identity.
A simulation of European Parliament work was also organized to make participants more familiar with EU institutions and to put into practice the knowledge gained in the workshop on EU institutions
“I’m glad that people got the task seriously and had laud and interesting discussion. As a philosophy student, this filed of work makes me feel “at home”” – Ivan Sklizović, Sisak Red Cross volunteer.
“I fully get into the role of Olgica Les, Polish conservative MP. Personaly I have completely different attitudes about immigrant issues but in this way I got to know opposite ones, since I had to defend them. I had great time discussing with my colleagues” – Mia Katančević, Local Democracy Agency Sisak volunteer.
To top the programme off, two visits were organized. The first one led the participants to the European Parliament, where the MEP Rainer Wieland received them warmly. The second one, at the Council of Europe where François Friederich held a lesson about democratic principles and a presentation of the role that the Council has in this field.
The Summer School concluded with a workshop about Project Management. This was a useful opportunity for participants to learn how create their own projects. They also developed ideas about how to improve active citizenship and encourage young people to become more active both locally and at EU level.
“The last day was my favourite one because we really had a chance to show our creativity and jointly realise what we thought, impossible ideas. I’m overwhelmed with positive impressions of the Summer school and consider it excellent opportunity that I might never will have again. I’m glad to had such experience and do hope I will have similar chance again” – Dinko Kovačić, Sisak Red Cross volunteer.
