Association des etats generaux des etudiants de l’Europe
AEGEE is one of Europe’s biggest interdisciplinary student organisations, striving for a democratic, diverse and borderless Europe. As a non-governmental, politically independent, and non-profit organisation AEGEE is open to students and young people from all faculties and disciplines.Since its foundation in 1985 in Paris, AEGEE puts the idea of a unified Europe into practice by operating without a national level, bringing a network of 13000 friends together from 170 cities in 38 countries, directly in touch with each other via cultural exchanges, non-formal educational opportunities and thematic projects. AEGEE has been active in the field of youth participation, youth employment, youth mobility, European citizenship and civic education, while constantly striving for a united and borderless Europe that is socially, economically and culturally integrated.
Through our activities, we empower students and young people in Europe to take an active role in society. We create a space for dialogue and learning opportunities as well as act as their representative towards decision-makers. AEGEE strengthens mutual understanding among young Europeans and brings Europe closer to young people.
As our association provides learning opportunities for the self-development through non-formal education, we managed to help strengthening the employability competencies of our members, foster their entrepreneurial skills and involve them in the work on policies regarding employment. Using the methods of non-formal education, we make sure that different learning styles and needs of our members are met, putting them at the center of the learning process. We tried to facilitate the transition from the education system to the labor market even further in the upcoming years, by empowering European students to develop their skills in the fields of communication and interpersonal skills, team management, problem solving, language skills, public speaking, project management and leadership.
AEGEE-Europe is one of the leading youth organisations in Europe in terms of youth mobility and active European citizenship. Through intercultural exchanges and thematic projects and by extensively using Non Formal Education, we are constantly promoting the mobility of young people and their personal and professional development through it.
As we don’t have a national level (we only have our local branches and the European level which supports the work of the AEGEE network), we understand Europe in a broader sense than most of people; by promoting the idea of a borderless and diverse Europe, we go beyond the distinction between EU and non-EU states; we treat every young European equally and empower them to realize their vision for Europe through our activities.
We have been working on the topic of migration since 2016; our biggest annual conference, EPM took place in Leiden, the Netherlands in the first months of 2016 around the topic of refugees and migration, a phenomenon that started dividing European societies back then. This conference motivated a lot of AEGEE members to work actively on the topic of migration; It resulted to the birth of the AEGEE Migration Interest Group (https://www.facebook.com/MIGR.AEGEE/), which counts 594 AEGEE members interested on the topic and coordinating annually every December the Human Rights Days within AEGEE. Additionally, due to the wide interest of our members, we produced AEGEE-Europe’s Policy Paper on Migration with the association’s position on the topic
(https://www.aegee.org/policy-paper-on-migration/).
Additionally, AEGEE has been very active in the field of EU-Eastern Partnership countries relations. We are part of the project ‘’EMPACT – Everyone Matters!’’, a project aiming to empower youth organizations, youth workers, trainers and educators to develop inclusion and diversity orientation in their work with rural and unprivileged young people and build their competence in addressing the needs of marginalized youth.
The validation of the learning competences acquired by young people (especially through non-formal learning) has been also a topic our association has been active in the last decade. We were coordinating the project GR-EAT (Guidelines for Recognition - European Advanced Tool), which aimed to propose a comprehensive tool for the implementation of recognition systems and contribute to the overall advocacy process toward the recognition of non-formal and informal learning (NFIL) taking place within youth organisations.
Spyridon (Spyros) Papadatos is a young European citizen from Greece. He studied Classics and Education at the University of Ioannina and he became active in the youth field in 2014, mostly through AEGEE / European Students’ Forum. He has attended and organized multiple international events and projects, also under Erasmus+ since 2015. He has been active in the European Youth Forum’s Migration and Human Rights Network since 2017 and he has been the National Youth delegate of Greece at the Congress of the Council of Europe for 2018. He was elected as President of AEGEE-Europe for the term of 2018-2019 and he’s the responsible for youth participation and active citizenship. He has extensive experience in project management through local and European projects such as Europe on Track, as well as with the management of Erasmus+ funds and he is currently in the Funding Expert Group of the European Youth Forum.
Through our activities, we empower students and young people in Europe to take an active role in society. We create a space for dialogue and learning opportunities as well as act as their representative towards decision-makers. AEGEE strengthens mutual understanding among young Europeans and brings Europe closer to young people.
As our association provides learning opportunities for the self-development through non-formal education, we managed to help strengthening the employability competencies of our members, foster their entrepreneurial skills and involve them in the work on policies regarding employment. Using the methods of non-formal education, we make sure that different learning styles and needs of our members are met, putting them at the center of the learning process. We tried to facilitate the transition from the education system to the labor market even further in the upcoming years, by empowering European students to develop their skills in the fields of communication and interpersonal skills, team management, problem solving, language skills, public speaking, project management and leadership.
AEGEE-Europe is one of the leading youth organisations in Europe in terms of youth mobility and active European citizenship. Through intercultural exchanges and thematic projects and by extensively using Non Formal Education, we are constantly promoting the mobility of young people and their personal and professional development through it.
As we don’t have a national level (we only have our local branches and the European level which supports the work of the AEGEE network), we understand Europe in a broader sense than most of people; by promoting the idea of a borderless and diverse Europe, we go beyond the distinction between EU and non-EU states; we treat every young European equally and empower them to realize their vision for Europe through our activities.
We have been working on the topic of migration since 2016; our biggest annual conference, EPM took place in Leiden, the Netherlands in the first months of 2016 around the topic of refugees and migration, a phenomenon that started dividing European societies back then. This conference motivated a lot of AEGEE members to work actively on the topic of migration; It resulted to the birth of the AEGEE Migration Interest Group (https://www.facebook.com/MIGR.AEGEE/), which counts 594 AEGEE members interested on the topic and coordinating annually every December the Human Rights Days within AEGEE. Additionally, due to the wide interest of our members, we produced AEGEE-Europe’s Policy Paper on Migration with the association’s position on the topic
(https://www.aegee.org/policy-paper-on-migration/).
Additionally, AEGEE has been very active in the field of EU-Eastern Partnership countries relations. We are part of the project ‘’EMPACT – Everyone Matters!’’, a project aiming to empower youth organizations, youth workers, trainers and educators to develop inclusion and diversity orientation in their work with rural and unprivileged young people and build their competence in addressing the needs of marginalized youth.
The validation of the learning competences acquired by young people (especially through non-formal learning) has been also a topic our association has been active in the last decade. We were coordinating the project GR-EAT (Guidelines for Recognition - European Advanced Tool), which aimed to propose a comprehensive tool for the implementation of recognition systems and contribute to the overall advocacy process toward the recognition of non-formal and informal learning (NFIL) taking place within youth organisations.
Spyridon (Spyros) Papadatos is a young European citizen from Greece. He studied Classics and Education at the University of Ioannina and he became active in the youth field in 2014, mostly through AEGEE / European Students’ Forum. He has attended and organized multiple international events and projects, also under Erasmus+ since 2015. He has been active in the European Youth Forum’s Migration and Human Rights Network since 2017 and he has been the National Youth delegate of Greece at the Congress of the Council of Europe for 2018. He was elected as President of AEGEE-Europe for the term of 2018-2019 and he’s the responsible for youth participation and active citizenship. He has extensive experience in project management through local and European projects such as Europe on Track, as well as with the management of Erasmus+ funds and he is currently in the Funding Expert Group of the European Youth Forum.