cooperation seminar - report

8/7/2019 Cooperation Seminar - Report

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Seminar Report

26 - 28 November 2010

Oslo


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1 Youth Projects and Cooperaon Seminar - 26 to 28 November 2010, Oslo - Seminar Report

Introducon

by Daniel Hardegger

What is the impact? This was the main queson at the seminar in Oslo at the end of November 2010. Every measure or

project developed, discussed and presented at the seminar were checked if it will create an impact, on regional, naonal

or even internaonal level, and that all UNYAs and UNA Youth Secons will benet from this. Starng with presentaons

about the dierent structures and working methods of UNYAs and UNA Youth Secons, inspiraon techniques and a

debate about chances and risks of internaonal projects, the whole seminar was characterized by praccal work. Aer

developing several projects to face upcoming challenges like the increasing expenditure on armaments, all parcipants

where working together in smaller groups on a specic idea and presenng the result to the group at the end to get

feedback. This constant working and review process was one of the key elements of the seminar and at the end we were

able to create four dierent and highly advanced project execuve summaries which can be found on the website and,

in a shortened version, in this report.

An event like this where young people can meet, work and start new projects together is a possibility to learn morefor a UNYA or UNA Youth Secon then working all alone. The new ideas and experience shared at such events improve

the work of all of all UNYAs and UNA Youth Secons aending, increase their own impact over me and to maintain

the enthusiasm high. Especially in our me with social plaorms, online video and audio conference programs and the

possibility to get in contact with enthusiasc young people all over the world, it is important to create the possibility to

concentrate this energy on one event for a few days. Only by using all this opportunies, preparing everything before the

event as good as it gets and invest all energy available at the event, the creaon of new projects, new inputs and ideas is

fastened, facilitated and the debates will lead to sustainable projects.

I want to thank the UNYA Norway for their nancial support and hosng of the event, as it is impossible to realize such

events without such support. Furthermore, I want to thank DMUN which supported the event when it was necessary. To

prepare and lead this workshop together with all the other from the sta, especially Halstein, was an unique and excingexperience.

I think that such event, improved and with more resources, are the base for a beer cooperaon between the dierent

UNYAs and UNA Youth Secons especially as the developed projects and measures can be carried out together. Because

of that, we decided in Oslo to support the great oer from Michael from Austria to host the next event in Vienna at the

beginning of August 2011 right aer in the VIMUN. With more to prepare the event, more enthusiasc people and special

experts who shall review the developed projects at place, I am sure that the will fulll our own goal: To create an impact.


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General Report

by Pau Pet

The aim of this seminar is to achieve a beer vision for a successful cooperaon among young people from dierent coun-

tries. Through the seminar new ideas and new projects have been discussed in order to plan the acon of the respecve

projects having in mind the wide possibilies that oer using internaonal coordinaon maximising their impact.

26/11/2010:

Arrive in Oslo. Check in hotel. Warm welcoming from the organisaon board. Starng to meet all the parcipants through

the World Caf at Oslo University while we share some typical food from the dierent countries that take part in the

seminar. Presentaon of the schedule of the seminar.

27/11/2010

Starng the day with the presentaon of the UNYAs/UNAs and their Dierent Structure having in mind the posive point

and the negave points of each way of organisaon. Also, we aended the presentaon of how to develop new ideasfor projects.

Moreover, we took part in the presentaon and discussion of the chances and risks of internaonal cooperaon. Lunch

was provided by the Oslo team and it was very good. In the aernoon, we aended a presentaon about speed dang

about a topic and developed projects for this topic. We feel it's a very clever and fast way of coming with new ideas in

order to tackle some issues.

Aerwards, in reduced groups young people we chose the best ideas that were wrien in the wall and each group de-

veloped one main project. My group choose to develop a project from the youth point of view how to tackle the Global

Warming. Another project that was developed was that the opinion of youth to be heard by the relevant authories

deciding issues of foreign policy. Also, the project of the global community with recognion and respect to dierent cul-tures. Moreover, the project of having an impact on military decision making and the youth view of war, trough educaon

children, confronng decision makers and impacng the society.

28/11/2010

In the morning we kept on working on the respecve projects that were started the previous day unl we nished them.

Next was the presentaon of each project in front of all the youth representaves. Aer each presentaon we proceed

to an open discussion in order to see how to carry them out. Aer lunch we aend to the presentaon of how to work in

the future, from bilateral contacts to an internaonal network.

It was stated that we feel all this seminar has been very producve. Also, we have had very fruiul discussions. Moreover,

we see that the youth of the world wants to take acon, it's capable to do so and is capable to organise projects with an

internaonal impact. We have seen that there is the will of unity and youth wants to work together. We have seen thatthe youth is determined to cooperate internaonally and, therefore, this seminar has been a success. In order to proceed

with the youth internaonal cooperaon a meeng has been established for the 5th August 2011 in Vienna.

29/11/2010

Trip back home with the feeling that youth has a great potenal, we just have to organise ourselves internaonally.

It's me for praccal work.


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Preparaon and Hosng - By UNSA Norway

by Halstein Bagien Moe

This was the rst internaonal event UNSA Norway has hosted. UNSA Norway saw this as a great opportunity to extend

our internaonal work and improve our experience. The idea from the host side was to try to host the seminar on an

almost zero budget, and see if it is possible to host an internaonal event on very limited budget in an expensive country.

UNSA Norway and UNYA Switzerland were in close cooperaon through the whole preparaon regarding both the pro-

gram and the praccal preparaons and included feedback from other UNYAs during the whole process. Planning took

place through rst Skype and then Adobe Connect which we decided to test out for further use in both the planning and

as an online plaorm during seminars.

The other UNY(S)As was supporve in the whole process and also gave a input on praccal maers so UNSA Norway had

somewhere to get answers form more experienced associaons. The preparaon in Norway involved geng members

of UNSA Norway to open their homes to guests. The biggest challenge regarding the preparaon was the short me to

prepare. UNSA Norway was originally planning to host a media workshop in October, but it was postponed for variousreasons. We decided instead to host this event about 5 weeks before the seminar started. The date of the seminar was in

the middle of the exam period, this made it harder to get members volunteering to provide accommodaon and to help

in the preparaon. But the three persons from Norway taking part in the hosng managed it without any big sacrices

in their studying.

Accommodaon, Meals, Rooms and Visa

Our original plan was to provide all the parcipants private accommodaon. This way we would have no expenses on

accommodaon and the parcipants would make ghter bonds with the hosts for further cooperaon. We managed to

get some of the guest private accommodaon, but we were not able to provide accommodaon for all. This doubled the

expenses of the seminar because the rest of the parcipants had to sleep at a hotel. Financially this was problemac,

since project support from the university would arrive aer the project was nished. Fortunately was solved by a loanfrom DMUN, a member associaon of UNYA Germany.

To keep the costs of food at an absolute minimum food was prepared at home and brought to the university and the

parcipants were able to have dinner at the home of the Chairman of UNSA Norway , this demanded more preparaon,

but saved us a lot of money. This also had a posive eect, by having the dinner at a private apartment the parcipants

were able to socialize in an informal environment. The University of Oslo provided the seminar rooms for free. There was

some bureaucracy to get the rooms in a weekend and to get guest access to the Internet, but once this was sorted out

the rooms funconed great for our needs. Visa applicaons to the Schengen area can take some me to process, this was

especially apparent for parcipants traveling from a country who did not have a Norwegian embassy, UNSA Norway did

not have any standard invitaon leer to invite parcipants from countries requiring a Visa, fortunately we have learned

a lot by sending out these invitaon leers. With help this experience will be turned into a standard procedure for help-

ing all UNY(S)As and UNAs to invite young people to the Schengen area for similar events.

Hosng this seminar has been a great experience. We have greatly enjoyed planning and implemenng the seminar,

meeng a lot of engaged people and sketched great projects for the future and we had lots of fun in the process. UNSA

Norway would love to host a similar event later. The most important improvement would be to signicantly reduce the

workload by arranging for the seminar further in advance and involving some more in the preparaon.

Some suggesons for seminars in the future:

- Assess how much your budget is, even if you have a zero budget, you should be able to get some money if something

goes wrong.

- Try to nd meeng rooms close to the area were the parcipants are sleeping, to save me and money for transport.

- Check early what you can get for free. The longer you wait the more expensive the seminar become.- Private accommodaon and home-made meals have social benets and are cheaper, but requires more work.

- Double check that meeng rooms and accommodaon is indeed ready in me to make other arrangements.


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Organizaon Structures Presentaon

by Sylvia Wimer

The rst presentaon was held by Niklas Vuskans and Sylvia Wimer from UNYA Germany. It considered three structural

quesons common to all UNYAs & UNA Youth Secons present in Oslo. The presentaon was meant as a discussion basis

and hence was held from the point of view of the two presenters. The rst part of the presentaon dealt with the ques-

on of how to structure the UNYA itself as an organizaon, starng from the premise of an independent naonal UNYA.

Sylvia demonstrated the dierences of the two most common models, the one of a member organizaon and the other

of an umbrella organizaon, by comparing their advantages and disadvantages from her point of view.

Coming herself from an umbrella associaon Sylvia sll tried to remain as unbiased as possible and gave personal ex-

amples for the advantages and disadvantages called out. Having parcipants from other UNYAs which funcon in the

structure of a member associaon the later following discussion was intense and the group determined that the ideal

structure for each UNYA depended on the circumstances of its founding, the number of people reached but also the vi-

sion for the UNYAs acvity.

Following the rst remarks by the other parcipants, Niklas connued with his part of the presentaon regarding the

comparison of steep and at hierarchies. He tried to elaborate the dierences between those two hierarchy approaches

by showing their eecveness in both the business world and pro bono work, poinng out that models successful in

business couldn't necessarily be transferred to the pro bono acvity of UNYAs, since the problems they are solving are

dierent from those occurring in a non-paid atmosphere.

The third part considered the dierent approaches to implement a project idea into the exisng UNYA mechanisms point-

ing out their advantages but also their dangers of usage such as loss of transparency and democrac procedure versus

the lack of eecve follow through with project ideas due to burocracy. In my personal opinion I believe that the pre-

sentaon achieved its main aim in starng a fruiul discussion among the present parcipants reconsidering their ownstructures and sharing their experiences and problems. It was also useful to point out the structural dierence between

an independent UNYA and a UNA-Youth Secon.

Due to the direct examples, posive as negave, out of the experience of the presenters a open atmosphere was estab-

lished which remained throughout the seminar, which led to realisc experience exchange.


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Inspiraon: How to develop new Project-Ideas

by Philine Frei

Brainstorming

One of the most popular techniques to develop ideas is brainstorming. The aim of brainstorming is to develop many

diverse ideas spontaneously in a group. A respecul atmosphere in the group is indispensable in order to prevent a slow-

down of the creavity of certain group members by inmidang these people. Another vital element of a good brain-

storming is a competent moderaon, discreetly guiding the whole process. The ideas menoned are oen documented

in a wrien collecon (on a poster, blackboard or similar).

The process of brainstorming embraces two parts: During the rst phase serving to nd ideas, every parcipant should

have the boldness to present all his or her ideas, even if they are very unconvenonal. Furthermore, every group member

should contain itself in terms of not cricizing other parcipants. During the second part, serving to evaluate and arrange

all the ideas, the proposals may be amended, cricized, classied etc. This step may also be carried out by other people

than the parcipants of the idea development process (e.g. specic experts).

Brainstorming allows the development of innovave, nonstandard ideas in a very cheap way which is easy to facilitate.

Furthermore, it can serve as a teambuilding exercise. The fact that there is a mutual inuence between the parcipants

(ideas of one parcipant may lead the thoughts of the other parcipants in a specic direcon), can be considered an

advantage or a disadvantage. On one hand, it boosts the creavity of the parcipants (zipper), but on the other hand

it limits the mind as thoughts may sck to paths once struck.

Social barriers within the brainstorming group might slow down or even impede progress: shy, qualied people dont

present their ideas, employees dont bring up ideas contrary to the employers ideas, and group members dont parci-

pate because of discriminaon; just to menon a few examples. Concerning this problem, the moderator and the person

forming the group play a key role, they must be aware of the interpersonal dynamics between the people involved. Whenplanning a brainstorming, one must also be aware that the unpreparedness of the parcipants and the lacking structure

may lead to many unrealisc, unusable of unspecic ideas. Addionally, the selecon of helpful ideas among the total

amount of ideas is somemes me-consuming.

Brainwring

One variaon of brainstorming is brainwring. It is very similar to brainstorming, the only dierence is that the parci-

pants submit their ideas in a wrien way (on paper or electronically).Brainwring has the advantage that it can be car-

ried out anonymously, which guarantees certain equality between the parcipants; also mid people or individuals on a

lower social level can fully parcipate.

The abatement of the inhibion threshold favors the development of more creave and diverse ideas. On the other

hand, the fact that the group members have to write down their ideas and to look for good phrasing leads to a decreasein dynamics and spontaneousness. Furthermore, the same ideas might appear several mes (this problem can be solved

using electronic meeng systems). During brainwring, there is less mutual inuence.

METHOD 6-3-5

Method 6-3-5, which is also called collecve notebook method, is a subtype of brainwring. There are six parcipants

(recommended number, of course variaons are possible), and every parcipant writes three ideas on a sheet. Aer-

wards, the sheet is handed on to the all the other parcipants who make amendments to the inial idea and further

develop it (if all the other parcipants comment the inial idea, there are ve amendments at the end)

For method 6-3-5, the same advantages as for brainstorming and brainwring apply. Further posive aspects are the

clear structure helping to arrange the thoughts well and the fact that theres a coherent train of thoughts. Given that thefeedback is wrien, it is more likely to be concise.


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General inputs about idea development

One should ensure that the correct queson is asked: the problem must be tackled, and not the symptoms of the prob-

lem. Where a problem appears to be very large, it is to be broken down into smaller parts. Somemes it might be helpful

to change perspecves and to think about the problem from a dierent point of view (What would you think about the

queson if you were person xy?). It can also be construcve to think reversely and to answer the queson how a bad so-

luon would look like. Switching the levels (from the abstract to the specic level and vice versa) is an important process

in order to be a nker and a visionary at the same me.

In many cases, copying others may be very fruiul. Given that there are certainly people who have already had the same

or a similar problem before, looking at their soluons is a good inspiraon and helps to think outside the box. Combining

dierent techniques can generate very posive results.

More informaon can be found following this link: hp://www.mindtools.com.


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Experiences with Speed Project Development

by Simon A. Methi

Speed Project Development is a framework for developing ideas for new projects that are planned and executed either

on a local or global level, through internaonal cooperang. The framework has two disncve phases. Phase One is set

up in a manner similar to speed dang, where the parcipants rapidly change partners and are presented a new topic to

form the idea of a potenal new project. This topic is then discussed for a me period of around 5 minutes, to create a

sense of urgency in the hopes of increasing creavity and eciency, whilst avoiding procrasnaon. The partners try to

write their general ideas about the project down on paper.

Phase Two of Speed Project Development use the project ideas that were generated during Phase One. The dierent

project ideas are circulated between the parcipants and form the topic and ideas for new projects. Parcipants then

forms groups related to the project ideas they are interested in developing further. The groups then create complete

project descripons.

My experience with Phase One of Speed Project Development is very posive. I felt the speed dang seng and feel-

ing of urgency helped both creavity and producvity, and led to many fruiul ideas. It therefore not only aided the cre-

aon of cooperave project development during the seminar, but has contributed to a further thought process aer the

seminar and several more possible future projects. My group have connued developing our project aer the seminar.

Speed Project Development therefore increased the output and ulity I gained from the Cooperaon Seminar, and is a

framework for generang new project that I would highly recommend.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

by Honna Marlla

Middle part of Saturday during the seminar weekend was spent on idea development for new projects through the

method of speeddang. The parcipants were each given a number and then organized by calling dierent pairs of num-

bers to sit together for a few minutes in order to develop ideas for projects around a certain theme. The themes were

determined by giving each pair one informaon card on global issues such as proliferaon of nuclear weapons, climate

change, changes in global populaon structure etc. Each pair was given a dierent card at each session which made the

method pleasant, dynamic and inspiraonal.

All the ideas were wrien down and pinned on the wall, and aer this process, all the parcipants could look at what

other pairs had discussed. Aerwards, everybody idened a project idea that they nd the most interesng and would

like to implement the most in their own country. Finally, four groups were formed around four dierent project ideas.

The rest of the Saturday and Sunday morning were spent in these working groups sorng out the details for the project,draing a project plan and designing a me frame for the implementaon. The four projects were introduced in detail to

all the parcipants later the same day.

The method of speeddang was experienced as inclusive, movang and producve. Changing the pairs and the themes

every few minutes created an atmosphere of openess and welcomed many dierent aspects on project development.

Working in pairs enabled the equal parcipaon of mid persons. Spreading all the ideas on the wall permeed explora-

on of dierent aspects and underlined the cooperave approach of the process. The results of the idea development

session were fruiul, and the method was overall extremely successful.


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Online Plaorm

by Daniel H. Haarhof

With the goal of facilitang a global exchange of UNYAs and UNSAs the seminar in Oslo was faced with one major ob-

stacle: travel costs. Especially for people outside of Europe coming to Oslo to connect with the other organisaons would

entail large costs for ights. To sll allow for the possibility of a global exchange of ideas the organisers choose to use a

virtual meeng room, through which it would be possible for anyone with Internet access to join the discussion.

For this purpose Adobe Connect Pro was selected. The soware allows anyone with standard web browser to join the

meeng and has the added benet of using Adobe's servers. This means that one isn't reliant on the Internet connecon

of a single parcipant to host the meeng but can rely on high speed servers located close to Internet backbones. The

virtual conference also came with a lot of amenies besides voice and video calling. It of course a chat but also allowed us

to view documents and presentaons together. That way during the presentaons everybody connected saw the slides

and presenters just like we did in Oslo. We also had a common text document were everybody could follow the notes

being taking during the discussion. To enable people who missed the presentaons and discussion to later come backand review the proceedings all the presentaons were available through the online plaorm and we also recorded the

enre session.

Sadly online parcipaon was quite low. But we had parcipants from the Philippines, Russia and Switzerland joining.

The low amount of parcipaon was partly due to the me dierences. People from New Zealand and Chile and been

interested in joining but couldn't make it due to the me shi. Another problem was the lack of reliableInternet con-

necons. For example Chrisne from the Philippines was cut o several mes. The ability to share presentaons was

very benecial since it allowed Irene Marne from WFUNA in Geneva to tell us about the organisaon and illustrate

her points by sharing a presentaon about WFUNA with us. What didn't work quite so well was the discussions which

followed the presentaons. We only had one laptop with a microphone and camera enabled so whenever somebody

wanted to say something that had to go the "speakers chair" which was posioned in front of the laptop. The alternavewas that the connected listeners around the world couldn't hear this person. Parcipaon from people not in Oslo was

also limited by the fact that they didn't have laptops and could only ask quesons via the chat. This and the fact that it

was at mes dicult to follow the discussion due to people talking without a microphone made the parcipaon via the

Internet quite hard. The conference room does oer the ability for parcipants to virtually raise their hand for a queson,

but it requires a lot more discipline by the people meeng in real life.

Even thought the virtual meeng wasn't a full success I believe we can learn a lot from it and improve the use of this tech-

nology for the future. It would be a lot easier to have a discussion with both online and local parcipants if one had about

one laptop for each table / two people. But more importantly all parcipants need to remain aware of the added dicul-

es of such an online meeng. It requires a lot more self discipline and it might be advantageous to have a moderator to

remind the people meeng in real life to speak one at a me. The plaorm delivered by Adobe Connect is more suited

to formal meengs or presentaons than lively discussions. This is also evident in the fact that it oers features such aspolls and quesons submission systems. But it sll allows for easy and cheap communicaon on an internaonal level,

which wasn't possible only a few years ago. Since the seminar I have used the plaorm for meengs at my own UNYA,

with parcipants spread throughout Germany and all the way to Norway. From those meeng I would gather that being

able to share documents collecvely is a benet not delivered by Skype and other services. But it did take some me for

the parcipants to get used to the new system and inially there were some problems with peoples microphone sengs.

This will probably become beer with people geng used to the plaorm. For quick meengs with few parcipants I

would sll recommend Skype and Etherpad.

In total I'm very impressed by the possibilies such technology oers. Organising events and exchanging ideas in distrib-

uted teams has become a lot easier with advent of reliable and fast Internet. Sadly in a many regions broadband Internet

is sll a rare commodity and it must remain a priority to abolish this technological divide to enable more people to par-cipate on important issues.


10/13


Execuve Summary - Cultural Diversity Seminar

by Monica Akech, Temmylade Ayo Aladeokin, Irene Gruzdova

Mission

This highly interacve internaonal four-day seminar deepens parcipants understanding of and respect for cultural

diversity. The project will help individuals and organizaons acquire the intercultural communicaon skills needed to

improve interacons with each other as well as cultural competence skills needed to work with diverse communies.

The seminar will provide an opportunity for parcipants to share experiences on various projects aimed both preserving

the tradions and cultural backgrounds and intercultural understanding with tolerant and respecul atude to each

other.

Objecves

Each day of the seminar is intended for special acvies.

The rst day is for acquaintance and teambuilding, through solving cross-cultural communicaon cases and parcipaonin role-play game. Through these acvies the parcipants will not just break the barriers in communicaon with each

other, but also together will nd the soluon of crisis situaon described in the role-play game.

The second day is set aside for project presentaons and workshops to show how the parcipants projects are imple-

mented. It would be a useful plaorm to test their project one more me with experienced audience. Each parcipant

will act as an organizer of his own workshop, and as a parcipant of others.

The third day is set aside for summarizing all general ideas for creaon of dierent projects and acvies for future imple-

mentaon both for parcipants and sponsors of the seminar.

On the fourth day the nal presentaon of the projects takes place. The cultural extra-program is also included in theprogram. It could be cooking of on local cuisine and visit local aracons.

Benets

The main outcomes of the seminar will be establishing a network of colleagues for further cooperaon and consultaon

with each other; developing new ideas for acvies undertaken by both the parcipants and the organizers; every par-

cipant might hold the same seminar in his/her region.

Project Scope

The implementaon of the project consists of 3 steps:

Preparaton: Planning / Informaon campaign (press releases/website) / Work with parcipants (recruitment/registra-

on/providing informaon)

Local actons: Accommodaon (Food and drink/IT support/Oce supplies/Cultural extra program)

Wrap-up: Feedback (Financial report for sponsors/Report for the website/Press releases)

The Organizing Commiee

Number of team-members depends on number of parcipants. The Team works in two direcons: work with parcipants

(2-3 people) and local preparaon (5-7). The team-members are experienced in organizing internaonal meengs, fo-

rums, workshops and etc., with knowledge of other languages.

Contact: [email protected]


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Execuve Summary - Daddy, why do we have war?

by Halstein Bagien Moe, Daniel H. Haarho

War is usually considered as something bad, this is true if you are an ordinary cizen, a polician or a general, but coun-

tries have come to accept armed intervenon. We want to raise quesons about the use of armed force by western

countries. We want to do this by making decision makers defend their policies to a group of people who do not share

their accepted truths, and accept the the necessity of a states acons to a lesser extent children. The goal of the project

is to make an impact on polical and military decision makers, and their view of war and conict. At the same me we

want to educate children, confront decision makers and impact society.

Project summary

The idea of the project is to nd partner schools where we will hold a show during which important gures from the

military eld have to answer quesons about war, collateral damage and other dicult topics regarding armed conict.

The quesons will be asked by a panel of children, and the guest will have to explain these quesons in a way that chil-

dren will understand. The show will be lmed in order to reach the largest audience possible. The show is meant to beentertaining, but at the same me make the audience and the invited guests think. By doing this we hope to sensize the

military gures, the children and the people watching to the ethical problems related to war. We believe that explaining

war and what follows it in an understandable way will challenge some of the established truths and concepons about

the necessity of armed forces and armed conict.

The children will be selected and prepared before the show, a suitable age group will be found before the pilot show by

bringing a camera crew to the school and record childrens opinions on war and internaonal conict. The show will at

the very last be broadcasted on web-TV, we will establish a webpage where we will share the informaon we get from

the project. Hopefully we can get a TV company to support us and maybe show it on a TV-channel.

Implementaon: Pilot ProjectThe project will start with a pilot project, where we will nd a local school willing to parcipate in the project. We will

use a camera and interview children and ask them quesons about war and armed conict, from this we can establish

the suitable age of the parcipang children, learn what the children know already and get lm footage to use at a later

point. The next step is to use this gathered informaon to nd out which topics could be of interest to the children and

develop concepts on how to help further their understanding in a non-frontal lesson. Following such a lesson the children

would develop various quesons for the invited guests. We will have to get someone represenng the armed forces or

the ministry of defense, so the pilot project should take place in a capital. We will base the rest of the project on the

results from this pilot. The pilot project is expected to have lile or no costs.

Post pilot implementaon

If the pilot is successful we will have to get partner organizaons or interested individuals in other countries to host

similar events there. We will need a lming crew, a web designer, a coordinang commiee and support in the relevantcountries. This means a minimum of 10 persons in the team plus the local groups. Each local partner will have to nd a

school willing to parcipate and a representave from the government. The local partner together with the coordinators

will try to get local sponsors. Aer we have implemented the project in several countries we will use the informaon and

footage to make a documentary and make it all available on a webpage.

Financing and Sponsors

There will be lile or no expenses on the pilot project; it will be performed with basic borrowed equipment locally. We

are budgeng that the team works voluntarily so there are no expenses on wages. The esmate of expenses for the proj-

ect in one country is about 6000. The costs for accommodaon can be signicantly reduced if the local team is able to

get private hosng for the internaonal team. Possible sponsors are media companies in the countries we perform the

project, these might be government-owned or private companies. Alternavely we will apply for project support fromgovernmental agencies or sponsors from other companies.

Contact: [email protected] or [email protected]


12/13


Execuve Summary - Youth for Soluons

by Philine Frei, Honna Marla, Niklas Vuskans

The parcipaon of the youth in the decision making of the state is oen minimal or even non-existant. The representa-

on of the people under the age of 25 years is rare in naonal parliaments, not to menon the governments. The future

in which the youth will live is in the hands of other polical actors whose posions may be inuenced by power polics,

the need to get re-elected, somemes corrupon, and other factors causing badly argumented bias. In the contrary, the

youth is not paid for forming their opinion or making decisions, which promotes unbiased, truthful and sincere discussion

and posion. If it was up to the youth, endeavor to abolish nuclear weapons and to prevent war for example would be

drascally intensied.

The aim of the project is to have actors of state administraon, ideally the Minister for Foreign Aairs, to listen to the

opinion of the youth in each country when deciding on issues of foreign policy. The main means to achieve the goal would

be publishing one or more posion papers per year, stang the youths view on certain specic topics and trying to es-

tablish an instuonalized concept of annual meengs between the representaves of the naonal UNYA (and possiblyother relevant youth organizaons) and the authories dealing with the issues in queson. Youth for Soluons makes the

youth a relevant and competent actor on the eld of non-governmental civil society parcipaon.

The representaves of the youth at the naonal UNYAs have high level of capacity to make clear to the state administra-

on that the youth of each country is well-informed, unignorant and truly cares about decisions made on global issues.

This is why careful preparaon and background research by the UNYA play key roles in the project. The image should be

further fored by showing that the youth is capable of idenfying current and relevant topics for the discussion. Issues

on which the UNYA could naturally have a posion include for example negoaons on an internaonal arms control

treaty or any queson addressed in dierent UN organs or other internaonal summits.

The cycle of the project is 12 months since the aim is to meet with the authories annually and as the preparaon fornew topics takes me. The implementaon of the project will be started by establishing a working group within the

UNYA. The members of the working group will be talented, hardworking people rather than necessarily board members

of the organizaon. The working group will have a project manager having supervision, coordinaon and organizaon of

the annual meeng (including consulng the oce of the Foreign Minister on the possibility of a meeng and keeping

regular correspondance with them) as his main tasks, and researchers who also act as draers of the posion papers.

The burden caused by fundraising and public relaons for the project being relavely small, these tasks will be delegated

to the fundraiser and the PR person of the UNYA. The UNYA will make eorts in order to involve a wide range of opinions

to provide equitable representaon of the youth regarding the posion papers and the discussion with the authories.

The team will gather up for regular preparaon meengs to work out an opinion on the topics. The posion papers will

be signed by the President of the UNYA in order to guarantee the legimacy, and then be both published approximately

two to ve weeks before the meeng with state administraon in media, their website, possibly the magazine of the

UNYA etc. and distributed directly to the relevant instuon of state administraon. The working group will make an

agenda for the meeng, design the ow of debate and come to an agreement on how to present their ideas. Press re-

leases on the meeng will be published both before and aer the meeng. Representaves of media wont be invited to

follow the discussion. Wrapping-up of the project annually includes gathering feedback in order to improve the prepa-

raon in the next project cycle. A monitoring system will be designed in order to follow and monitor the results of the

posion papers and the discussion.

Funds demanded for the project are relavely marginal since the expenses will be caused mainly by the preparaon

meengs and the meeng with the authories. However, some budget should be reserved for research materials (books

etc. in order to guarantee and enable high level research) and for travel costs if the team members are located on dier-

ent sides of the country.

Contact: [email protected]


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General Contact: [email protected]

Website: hps://sites.google.com/site/cooperaonseminar/

Layout Copyright:

United Naons Youth and Student Associaon of Austria - Academic Forum for Foreign Aairs (UNYSA-AUSTRIA-AFA)

Global View Magazine - Hourg/Stallburg, Reitschulgasse 2/2.OG - A-1010 Vienna - Austria / Contact: [email protected]

Execuve Summary - Climate Change

by Alper Grlek, Simon A. Methi, Pau Pet, Sylvia Wimer

Aim of the Project (including vision etc.)?

Having witnessed the limited success in the ongoing mulnaonal eorts of nding an internaonal agreement on a

follow-up to the Kyoto process, we believe, that it is me for the youth of the world to show responsibility and acon

in this eld of polics. Believing that the paths to consensus in our age eld are less restricted by such thoughts as re-

elecon and economical pressure we want an united youth tackling those big environmental issues.

Our project is aimed to be a conference in which those major topics can be discussed, yet the small steps of local and

regional concrete steps are not neglected.

Which are the target groups?

The target group for the project are young people prior acve and educated in the eld of environmental issues. Hav-

ing a background either in NGO or in other project acvies would be an asset, while it should be noted that the aim ofthe conference is not to be a playground for interest groups but an easy and non-bureaucrac way for young people to

exchange knowledge and experience, and to use this exchange to develop concrete results and project ideas.

Dierences from other projects like this? Why is this project unique?

There aren't any projects with such impact involving youngsters. Our project is unique because the internaonal coop-

eraon among all the Youth from the UN associaons of the world would mean a unique response to the worlds leaders

for the common good.

Some of the Youth of today will be the leaders of tomorrow; therefore we should be included in the negoaons that will

shape the world of tomorrow. Moreover, the UNA/ UNYA as NGOs are not inuenced by the governments, can provide a

posve non-policized point of view and an argument for the worlds future. Plus UNAs are not inuenced by parcularinterests.

Contact: [email protected] or [email protected]

cooperation seminar - report

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