AEGEE (Association des Etats Generaux des Etudiants de l'Europe-European Students' Forum) is one of the biggest interdisciplinary student associations in Europe; it is represented by 25.000 students, active in 286 academic cities, in 42 countries all around Europe, which presents amazing culture variety. AEGEE is a secular, non-profit organization, not linked to any political party. All projects and activities are based on voluntarily work of its members. AEGEE is aiming to promote a unified Europe without prejudices, to strive for creating an open and tolerant society of today and tomorrow and to foster democracy, human rights, tolerance, cross-boarder co-operation, mobility and European dimension in education. In order to reach these aims, since its foundation in 1985 in Paris, AEGEE locals have organized summer-universities, conferences, language courses which are held by parallel with the AEGEE’a field of actions;namely; cultural exchange, active citizenship, higher education , peace and stability.
AEGEE-Ankara: Middle East Technical University European Society was founded in 1993 and accepted by AEGEE network as AEGEE-Ankara by an Agora ( AEGEE-Europe’s general meeting) decision taken in Autumn Agora '95. Later on, AEGEE-Ankara became an active contact antenna. The first international event of AEGEE contact Ankara was the '95 Summer University "Turkish Culture and Language". "Understanding Europe" conference was the first European Event of AEGEE-Ankara, which made a small contact to be a leading antenna. Integration of Ankara and AEGEE is accepted as a revolution because AEGEE decided to break dogmas about modern European borders and brought a new conception to "Europe of values".
AEGEE-Ankara is one of the most active locals in AEGEE network with over 300 members. AEGEE-Ankara organizes "summer universites" each year with different tematic backgrounds. And with different Working groups in itself, Its members are working for human rights,environment sensitiveness and erasmus projects.
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Some main activities of AEGEE can be emphasized under five main subjects:
· Action Days -at the same time, all over Europe AEGEE locals carry out various activities, which deal with one topic and together provide a great and complex composition of results, e.g.: Socrates Action Day, European Day of Languages or Dance Action Day
· Case Study Trips -research trips aiming to increase the knowledge on a specific topic ( like democracy, youth issues, standards of living and study, nationalism and minority issues) concerning a specific area.
· Projects – every year, during a General Assembly (AGORA), AEGEE members decide on a Yearplan Topic -the tematic frame for projects involving whole Network, e.g. “Youth & Globalization” -2003, “European Identity” -2004 and “Hotspots –Stability through Conflicts Understanding” –2005. Moreover AEGEE organizes various conferences, seminars and smaller projects on local and European level.
· Summer Universities – unique international summer courses, successfully carried out by AEGEE already for 17 years! Every year, in around 100 places all over Europe, multicultural groups of 20-50 young people, enjoy together the wonders of cultural variety. They can focus on: art, history, languages, nature or sports.
· Trainings – AEGEE offers to its members a professional Internal Education System with about 8 international trainings (different kinds of "European Schools") and many Local Training Courses per year. Trainings are based on a balanced combination between theory and practice in the formula of lectures followed by casework. Trainings are a tool of knowledge transfer within the organization, help members to develop their personal skills and complement education with lifetime experiences.
In order to really promote international co-operation and avoid creating any physical or mental borders AEGEE does not recognize any national level or national administration in its unique organizational structure, which is based on:
· Local level – where people from the 286 autonomic AEGEE locals directly implement AEGEE aims in a way that serves best the needs of their local community
· European level – which gives the great common frame and direction for all local activities and provides a platform for international co-operation in multicultural teams
Members from local level can directly get involved in the European Working Groups, Project Teams and Commissions.
Some past events-projects of AEGEE-Ankara
· In August 1995, a summer university was held. The participants studied Turkish language and culture.
· "Understanding Europe", the international student symposium was held in April 1996. This has lead AEGEE-Ankara to become an antenna in November 1996.
· In August 1997, traditional summer university was held.
· In April 1997, AEGEE-Ankara invited Prof. Andrea Gattini to give a conference on "Inter-governmental Conference - European Union in Perspective" at Middle East technical University.
· In May 1997, AEGEE-Ankara organized the "European Monetary Union" conference in which Alber Maes attended as a speaker.
· Again in May 1997, together with AEGEE members from Blagoevrad, Eskisehir, Istanbul and the European Team and the presidentof AEGEE-Europe, an "AEGEE Regional Meeting" was organized. The main points of the discussions included 'Socrates', 'Youth for Habitat' and 'Greek-Turkish Relations'
· In November 1997, AEGEE-Ankara organized AGORA ( AEGEE-Europe’s General Meeting, with 800 participants around Europe) in cooperation with AEGEE-Europe.
· In July 1998, Summer University - Anatolia: The Cradle of Civilizations' was organized by the participation of 22 students from 14 different cities.
· In November 1998, in the 50th anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, AEGEE-Ankara organized the conference "Universality of Human Rights" in order to discuss if we need a new conceptualization on Human Rights
· In July-August, 45 European students have come together and enjoyed the summer university of AEGEE-Ankara; "Wars: Destiny of Anatolia" of which route was 6.000 km. Around
· In July 2000 during the traditional summer university of AEGEE-Ankara, hundreds of students from various cities of Europe came together to understand the "Black Sea" Culture.
· During August 2000 in Kuşadası, AEGEE-Ankara succeeded to organize the flagship event of UNESCO with the official partnership of AEGEE-Athina. 200 students from different continents came together in order to have an education about "Conflict Resolution".
· Between 01-17 July 2001 , Turkish-Hungarian Cultural Exchange event(Zsebemben Alma Van-Cebimde Elma Var) event realised with 75 participand from Turkey and Hungary.
· AEGEE-Ankara organized “BeCOMEast Summer University “ with 35 participants in South-Eastern Anatolia Region.
And following years, AEGEE-Ankara continued organize its international organizations, summer universities and also some main projects that are mentioned below.
· 2002-2005: Turkish Greek Civic Dialogue Project is being financed by European Commission Representation to Turkey. Project’s aim is to strengthen the dialogue between youth organizations in Turkey and Greece and to develop the communication network. The target group of the Turkish-Greek Civic Dialogue Project involves university students, youth organizations and NGOs in Turkey and Greece as well as academicians and media. Four main activities of that projects are:
o “Rebuilding Communication” conference realized in Sakarya with the partnership of AEGEE-Sakarya between 20-23 March 2003,
o “KayaFest International Youth and Culture Festival” organized in Fethiye-Kayaköy between 28 July-3 August with the participation of nearly 3000 youngs.
o “Population Exchange Reconsidered” Symposium of Compulsory Exchange of Populations Between Turkey and Greece” on its 80th Anniversary held with the partnership of Lausanne Treaty Emigrants Foundation on 7-8 November 2003.
o Final Conference held on 20-21-22 February 2004 in Middle East Techinal University with 150 participants from Turkey and Greece.
In addition to these four activities; some other activities such as preperation visits to NGOs and youth organizations, the preperation and publishing of a database of Turkish and Greek youth NGOs, publishing result book are within the content of the project.
( www.aegee-ankara.org/trgr)
· 01-06 October 2004: Eye Contact, Islam and Europe International Conference took place in Middle East Technical University with the 75 participants/ students all around Europe and the Middle East, financed by European Comission. This project’s short term aim is to provide a suitable environment to review how we see people who have different cultural backgrounds and find ways of dialogue.
( http://www.aegee-ankara.org/eyecontact )
· 01-10 September 2005: European School 2, is AEGEE’s most advanced training course which is designed to prepare AEGEE members for work at the European level. Its main focus is advanced project management within the framework of NGOs.
( http://www.aegee-ankara.org/es2 )
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