Like autumn leaves ‘EuroArab’ participants finally fall across Europe

It’s Sunday, 31st of October and the atmosphere in Cologne is productive, creative and exciting. Is it autumn that colored the last Day of October so bright with its yellow, red and green leaves hanging in the trees and waiting the right time to slowly fall down and make colorful carpets on the streets? No. We are also waiting, but not for those leaves in the trees…our long awaited ‘leaves’ will be young people from Egypt, Palestine and different European countries that will arrive tomorrow… and our ‘colorful carpet’ will be the Case Study Trip “EuroArab goes Europe: understanding each other’s challenges” formed by all of us: Egyptian, Palestinian and European participants who will tackle global challenges such as migration, integration, gender equality and social inequality in the first 2 weeks of November.

AEGEE-Koln as a welcoming local has the honor to meet the participants first. Even though some of the European participants have already arrived, most of them and especially our partners Better World Foundation with participants from Egypt and Students’ Forum Institute with participants from Palestine will be welcomed on 1st of November when all of us will gather in the official opening.

After spending few days in Cologne, the Case Study Trip will continue its path to Aachen, another German city and AEGEE local, and then we will be heading to Brussels and after that the final stage of the CST will be spent in Maastricht. What exactly will happen in those 4 cities? And how will participants perceive it? Well, we don’t know yet and let’s not hurry to know it before it really happens! Therefore, you are welcome to follow the life of participants during the whole CST from 1st to 14th of November on this blog (cst-euroarab.blogspot.com) where each day 1 Arab and 1 European participant will report on his/her experiences about cultural differences he/she notices, food he/she tastes, global challenges he/she tackles or asks to tackle people on streets, movie he/she sees, a new city he/she explores, a new person he/she meets or maybe a place he/she gets lost. Follow us every day and you will see the CST in the eyes of both Arab and European youngsters.

On behalf of EuroArab Team,
Agnija Kazuša

Welcome to EuroArab blog! Here it starts... and goes Europe!

This Case Study Trip constitutes the part of AEGEE’s (Europe), Better World’s (Egypt) and the Students’ Forum Institute’s (Palestine) project “EuroArab: Understanding each other’s challenges” which aims at empowering young people in Europe and the Arab world to tackle global challenges. (for more information please check the attached project outline or www.beyondeurope.eu EuroArab)
During the case study trip the participants will explore certain global challenges: migration and integration, gender equality and socio-economic inequality. Next to lectures, workshops and group discussions, they are going to meet different organisations working in the field related to those challenges. For example a visit to an organization working for the integration of migrants in Europe as well as an encounter with a representative of a NGO providing support and help for women that were not treated equally are planned.
Furthermore, two days of the event will be spent in Brussels. There the participants will get to know the European institutions but also meet representative of the head office of AEGEE-Europe as well as representatives of the European Youth Forum who are going to provide information about the cooperation between Europe and Arab countries in the youth field.
In order to ensure the continuity of the project, in all cities visited surveys will be conducted to get the opinion of the general republic regarding the importance of global challenges for themselves and the societies they are living in. Similar surveys will also be conducted during the case study trip to Palestine and Egypt, as well as during the final conference in Ankara, hence giving us the possibility to compare the attitudes in the visited cities.
One of the aims of the exchange is also to show the Arab participants as many faces as possible of Europe, the European culture and especially the role of youth organisations in Europe, but at the same time giving the Arab participants an opportunity to share their points of view on the discussed global challenges as well as their culture. Therefore, an atmosphere of openness and intercultural exchange will be created which will ensure that this event will be a unique experience for each of the participants!
This event is financially supported by the Youth in Action programme of the European Commission.